


Angels Ate My Brain

by phaedrearden



Series: Supernal Energy [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-04 23:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12782370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phaedrearden/pseuds/phaedrearden
Summary: Dean's brain has a life-altering experience, sort of without him.





	Angels Ate My Brain

Angels Ate My Brain

***

Dean was glad that he and Sam were relatively flush for opioid painkillers.

Passing through Sagin Rock, Colorado, the brothers had heard of a situation involving multiple deaths among workers employed at renovating and remodeling a licensing office. They'd decided their current apocalyptic concerns could be put on hold for what sounded, after a brief investigation, like a day-trip, milk-run poltergeist eradication. "We likely won't even have to stay a night after," Dean had opined as he took the appropriate exit from the freeway. Famous last words. 

Dean had been smashed into walls of shelves, bounced across rolling carrels, through glass clerk-station partitions, through closed closet doors (more shelves), and down debris-littered stairwells, before Sam managed to get in a clear rock-salt shot, seeing as he wasn't in such great shape either by that point. To even slow them down, he'd had to get a shot at the vulnerable epicenter of the entire mass of entities; this gave him time to locate the human remains that needed his attention.

Rather than the situation being, as they'd figured, ghosts of faithful employees who'd worked there all their lives protesting the remodeling--ghosts hated remodeling, and could hang around for decades without causing trouble so long as their homes remained undisturbed--it turned out to be more complicated. Nineteen dessicated bodies were crammed into a hidden wall-cupboard in the manager's office. The guy really had been the boss from hell. 

But Dean wasn't currently concerned with all of this. The last thing he remembered, as he was coming to, was the blood, salt, flames, drywall, scrap lumber (with nails in it), and other such caroming thickly through the air overhead. Now, the only thing he heard was some shuffling and muttering, and all he could see was a clean swirly-plastered ceiling. He knew he wasn't dead; he'd done dead, in several flavors, and this was definitely life--specifically, his. 

This little siesta of grim calm was diturbed by Sam's appearing and beginning to peel at the begored denim of Dean's jeans, trying to get them off. As if the stripping process wouldn't have been painful enough in Dean's condition, the blood had apparently had time to dry and stiffen the cloth. Sam had probably used a knife to slice Dean's shirts off, but now that Dean was conscious, the sawing effort that would have been required to get through crusty jeans with a blade would have likely been just as painful as inch-by-inching the denim off his body. 

Dean developed a sudden fondness for crud-permeated clothes. "Ow, ow--goddam, leave th' pan's, I ligh the pan's..."

"I might still be able to save these; they're dark enough. We can't afford to toss everything we're wearing *every* time we get the shit beat out of us." This was Samspeak--he had a whole dialect for communicating with Dean, in particular--for "Causing you more pain is killing me, so shut up and don't make it worse." 

Dean stopped trying to talk, settling for involuntary whimpers and tiny groans, and Sam went on "You're going to be all right. Cas, um, healed the worst. By the way, I didn't have to cut your boots or the jacket off, and I think I can get the blood out of them." 

"How long's I...out?"

"About six hours. Most of that was Cas and--and your healing. As far as it's gotten, at least."

Something seemed wrong with that statement--he didn't know if it was the time, or something to do more with Cas--maybe both? Fuck. 

"You aren't good as new, obviously, but your bones are all healed, and everything else will heal, now. You just need time down, some decent food..." Sam's tone was light, but his speech was clogged and nasal, and Dean (even through his own swollen-eyed, lumpy-nosed fucked-o-vision,) could discern his brother's face as a seriously cried-up mess, tearstreaked and bloodshot and red-nosed, scratched and bruised; though at least it still looked like a face. Dean suspected his own did not. 

"Cas? We haven' seen him fo' a liddle...how 'id he know..."

Sam was pulling an extra blanket up over him. "I called him. Kind of." Sam was licking his lips and glancing up at something Dean couldn't see. At least, not from behind the horizontal crack of his swollen eyelids--he wondered if the world looked like this to Cylon centurions. It occurred to him to ask Sam, since the sensor effect on the front of the Kitvamped Impala had been similar, but then decided all that thinking and talking would be too much work. Then he wondered just how many times he'd been whanged in the head.

He could barely see Sam now, as the latter moved around the room, stuffing Dean's cruddy clothes into a gym bag and then stuffing the bag into a larger duffel that was already distended by soft-looking lumps. Sam jerked the string tight. "I'm going to get this stuff clean at the coin-op across the plaza; it's too gross to give to housekeeping. And I'll pick up a few supplies. Cas says you won't be going anywhere for at least a week, likely longer."

"Ogay..."

"If you need anything, Cas'll help you." Sam nodded toward the spot the other queen-sized bed would be if they were in a double room. Dean couldn't turn his head to look, but there was a brief rustle of fabric and Dean felt a light touch on his naked shoulder.

"Hello, Dean."

"I'll be back soon," Sam said, and then, to Dean's mild surprise, Sam paused and just leaned down over him a minute, looking Dean up and down, finally gazing into his eyes. He was there long enough for a thick strand of his wet, slicked-back hair to work loose from the main mass and drip once or twice on Dean's face. The drips felt devastatingly, sweetly cool. He didn't even want to think about what that meant for the shape his face must be in--

Wet? Yeah, Sam would've had a quick shower; he couldn't have looked much better than Dean. So there must've been more crying even after he'd cleaned up. Geez. That bad?

Sam was touching his cheek; it didn't hurt. Dean wondered which of several possible factors was responsible for that. "Be good, okay? No moving. Unless you've gotta go, and then you let Cas carry you, or next time it'll be me carrying you, and that'll be a lot less comfortable--" Sam's breath caught and he closed his eyes and swallowed hard. Then he opened his eyes again, leaned down, and kissed Dean's temple. "I'll see what I can do about getting you things that are safe to eat and that you can stand, not that it'll be easy."

"Beer?" Dean gurgled hopefully.

"Shut up, Dean."

Dean closed his eyes and sighed, felt another kiss, much lighter, and heard Sam say "Watch him, Cas; even beat to hell and gone, he's devious."

Castiel's monotone replied "Yes, I know."

"Not in the bone-deep way I do, believe me." Dean heard the heavy wood of the door whump to in the solid frame, and the latch click, locking. Dean wouldn't ever admit that--in his current state--he found that sound reassuring, since anything nonhuman likely wouldn't be stopped by any damn door if it really wanted them, and anything human would be handily stopped by Cas, no need of door. The room had to be warded already, too. 

"Cgath?"

"Yes, Dean?"

"Wagher."

A straw was held to his lips, and Dean sucked the eight-ounce hotel-bathroom glass dry before his strength ran out. He let his head ease back, barely noticing Cas's hand under it, and closed his eyes. 

He didn't sleep, he just rested a few moments, then blinked his eyes to their present definition of open and tried again. "Cas? Water?"

The bendy straw was positioned at his lips again, and he drank slightly less than the whole glass this time before giving up. "Thanks," he whispered. He was pretty sure the word had been understandable; but his nose was still blocked, and his mouth seemed swollen.

"You're welcome. You need to drink as much as you can, so long as it doesn't aggravate your injuries. Sam will be bringing herbal tea and sugar."

Drinking water could aggravate his injuries? He forwent a query about any of the drinking being of particularly smooth whiskey and said only "Uh, why y'still here? You been...kin'a urgen' bizness..." 

Castiel spoke in his rapid monotone. "You would have died without my help. The most advanced medical science in existence would have been worthless, even if it were available to you in that situation." Dean heard rustling that probably signaled Cas sitting on the other bed, and the angel went on. "Sam could see that. He knew that along with your other internal injuries, your brain had been shaken inside your skull hard enough to...well, to oversimplify, enough to break the glial material--the scaffolding of the brain, among less obvious things--into a loose gel. The physical structure of the brain's neuronal network wouldn't have survived that for long."

"Brain...inna cogtail shagher," Dean managed. 

"In short."

"You save it?"

"Sam and I did. Owing to my current reliance on...methods other than my usual in order to find the energy to use my grace, I had to keep my work, in that area, to the minimum necessary to bring you to where your own healing processes could take over. You're still suffering cerebral contusions, and your brain will have to route around at least one area where it was oxygen starved for too long; but I've begun that process as well. When you're recovered, you will likely notice no difference in brain function, cortical or otherwise."

"Thought...you weren' riding my shoul'er..." The attempted joke fell flat, but Castiel only sighed. 

"I'm not, Dean. Even after my outright rebellion, it remains true that angels are--we can't avoid it--more aware of the entire universal picture than of any smaller part of it; but you and your brother play significant parts in the largest picture possible since the last extinction level event...and on the individual level, you're very important to me."

"Oh. Uh--" Suddenly Dean began to cough, which hurt like hell, his whole torso plus his throat and weird parts of his head (like his cheekbones), and Castiel quickly provided him with more water. "I still...tha' bad? Sam call you, h'sai..."

"If you want to know how I knew Sam truly needed me over something very important to everyone on Earth...there was a...Sam has a sincerity in him, and in his 'feel', and it goes beyond the panicked sincerity of sheer need. It's an attribute of his personality, something I've never found a way to explain in human language. While sincerity certainly exists in you, it's surrounded by a fortress that is not easily penetrated from either side. Although, as you know, I can usually hear you, too."

"Wagher..."

Cas came with the glass and let Dean drink again; when the latter let his head drop, Cas asked "Are you done, or do you only need to rest a moment?"

"Ogay f'now."

Castiel nodded, set the glass down on a heavy-paper coaster on the huge, hardwood, wall-mounted double bedtable; then he resumed his seat on the other bed. "I love you," he said in his deep, level voice, as though he were telling Dean what time it was. "And I love Sam. I love you both with...a specific intensity, a fleshly, neurochemical vigor, that that is not appropriate to an angel. Yet I know that the most important part of this feeling could not be driven out of me, even if I were to shed this vessel permanently. An angel should be able to relegate love to its proper place of growth and contribution to the larger perspective. I could do that, once. I don't believe I could, now. Of course, I used all my resources to save you...just as Sam used all of his." Cas's voice dropped on the last part of that sentence, and he made a soft growling sound, maybe a throat-clearing.

That sounded sort of unfinished, but Dean couldn't put together why. "Uh...ogay. M'lad you cgame."

"I know," Castiel said softly. There was a stirring sound and Dean felt cool wetness, like the water that had dripped onto his face from Sammy's hair, moving gently around on his face. "And you're quite welcome, but you shouldn't talk. Does this feel better?"

"Yeah. S'ngood. I ngo' my teese?"

"Yes, you have all your teeth. Your mouth is...very swollen and bruised, even inside. I did have to replace one tooth."

"Ng'n 'row teese?"

"No, I found it lying near you. You had some others that had to be solidified in their beds. You already needed to go to the dentist, by the way."

Dean gave what was supposed to be a manful snort at that. Whatever he actually did, it hurt bad and sounded worse.

Cas ignored it. "I'm going to stay for a while to make sure you're all right. Two weeks in this inn has been provided for you by a data-entry error, for which I am responsible. Sam told me what to enter, if you're wondering."

"Was."

"Sam also assures me that he can provide for you both for that time, if you should require all two weeks before you can safely be moved any distance."

"Cool." No lie. At the moment, two weeks of lying here and not moving even slightly sounded great to Dean, which he knew should be alarming in itself. But he was too tired to care about that, either.

"Go to sleep," Cas said, "I'll be here." Dean heard the cloth Cas had been laving his face with being dunked into water and wrung out; there was evidently an ice bucket or something next to the bed. Several more wet cloths were then applied to the hot, tight areas on his face and body. "Rest."

"'ove you, too," Dean mumbled. 

"I know. I've grown familiar with your idiosyncratic ways of showing it."

"*My* idiosyncratic ways?" Dean tried to demand of the deadpan, oft-AWOL angel. But he didn't make it past "id". 

***

He woke slowly and uncomfortably, not especially trying for consciousness. It was more like the awareness of his surroundings, which included way too much physical discomfort, crept up on him while his back was turned, and now he couldn't fend it off. 

He heard Cas's voice, not really following what the angel was saying. "...common pattern of human men in some cultures, and not unheard of in human women, though it's less pervasive."

There was a sigh that Dean identified as Sam's. "As far as the rest of it...you're right about him, and sometimes it makes me insane, but...our Dad was like that, and Dean got the big-brother-responsible treatment, which I try to remember; it helps keep me from picking him up by his neck and shaking him every day. Or reacting to every jab. I mean, between the two of us, one of us had better be a grown-up. If Dean wants to think it's him, let him think it."

"You show more patience with him than I might be able to, in your place. Not that I have much in the way of reference."

"Do you think Ruby...the whole faith thing..."

Dean managed to realize he'd missed a lot of this conversation, because that amorphous question prompted Cas to practically launch into the Gettysburg address. "I think it was that openness which led you in the direction of trusting her. While you've become almost inured to the necessity of a smaller harm to avoid a greater, you hate the idea; Dean wants to accomplish the same good ends, but he's no longer troubled about methods as much as you still are. His lack of tendency toward faith in general allowed him to see that you were being led into evil that would eventually destroy you. You believed it was not a case of the ends justifying the means, but that the means could not be evil if they harmed no one--as long as you helped, rather than hurting. But *you* were being harmed. Since you would not count that as being of any consequence, as making the means harmful..." 

"Yeah, I got that. I was wrong."

"Dean's been wrong in the same way, though. He reacts to things from a place of emotion and reflex, rather than considered observation. He has his own blindnesses. But...that's in the past, Sam. Eventually, if we are going to make up for even part of what we've done--and this goes for me as well, perhaps me especially--we're going to have to forgive ourselves and each other, and move on...or perhaps just move on."

Sam chuckled. "Usually I'm being told I have to mend my ways, and Dean's being told he has to forgive himself."

"There's nothing...mendable left. Not for any of us. What you and Dean have...it has suffered, it has changed, but it has never died. You and he must go forward, and you can. You both need to be sure of only that much--that you can do that, and that there is enough reason to bother."

Sam sighed. "Kinda ironic, isn't it? He starts the breaking of the seals, I finish it...it seems that we're so different." He made a soft sound, then continued "If we both started it, we both have to finish it. But what about the whole 'righteous man' thing? That he's the one who's supposed to be so crucial?"

"I'm not repeating the prophecy mindlessly; the ultimate culmination of a prophecy almost never looks like you'd expect. See it this way--Dean was right about something else, too; you have kept each other human. Not perfect, not even necessarily honest. Flawed, weak, noble, strong. Doing what seems best at the time, which is all any human can do. You are not obviously much alike. But that will never change, and you musn't try to use it as a reason to live without each other. Especially not now."

"So Dean being a no-faith-having, semi-oblivious pessimistic bastard is actually a good thing."

Thanks, asshole, you were the overtrusting faith-having demonblood joneser, Dean thought, but Castiel was replying, sounding as amused as he ever did--you had to know what to listen for--"Yes, it can be. And your faith is also a good thing. The two of you balance each other well. And that tendency in you allowed me to hear you clearly when you needed me."

"What were you doing at the time, anyway?"

"Something I can't discuss with you, for your own safety." 

A brief pause. "Er. I'll take your word for it. I guess that's what I do." Dean could hear the smile in Sam's voice this time. Okay, Sam was flirting again, and Cas would probably flirt back, which was fine, but it didn't get any painkillers into Dean's body, so it could wait. He summoned all his willpower and managed to produce a brief whiney noise. Shit. It hurt to move his diaphragm.

"Oh, hey--" Sam was at his side in an instant. "You're awake?"

"Nn."

"Need water?"

"Mn-hm."

Another bendy straw was placed at his lips, and he swallowed what tasted like chilled bottled water with a lime twist. Nice touch, he thought absently. He swallowed a few times, paused for breath, and swallowed some more. 

"Can you talk at all?"

"Yeah. I wan' pills."

"I bet. Hang on." Sam disappeared from Dean's personal universe for a moment; he was replaced by Castiel, who touched his forehead very lightly, and Dean felt the vague all-over pain that was gradually intensifying recede again. 

"S'ank-oo."

"You're welcome. Here." Sam must have handed Cas the pills, because it was Cas who lifted his head and helped him get one in; when it didn't look like going down with a mouthful of water, Dean felt the mattress shift to his left--Cas was on his right--under Sam's inexorable weight. Motherfucking ow on his battered person, thanks very much. His brother's broad hands spread flat against his upper back (ow!) and elevated his (ow!) torso slightly, while Cas dealt with Dean's head and with getting the pills washed down. 

As they laid him gently back on the mattress, he muttered "When...hurt less...wash?" Dean was still thickly coated with the blood and spit and dirt and dust and snot that comes from a pounding against the inside of a half-remodeled building, though at least his face had to have been cleaned up some, and the enfilthed clothes were gone, which he could appreciate more by now. Also he thought there might be some air moving through his nose. He wasn't going to check, though, because it would hurt, bad if he was right and worse if he was wrong.

"Yeah," Sam nodded, "but for the moment, just lie there and let those pills work." Sam took Castiel's arm and pulled him away a little from Dean; Dean wondered if Sam actually thought Dean was so out of it he wouldn't hear them. Sam said "It's not good to leave all that potential infection on him; he does need to be washed, but is it safe to move him around that much?"

"His soft-tissue damage is very deep; but moving him only as far as the bathroom, provided he lets us do it and doesn't try to contribute to the effort, won't aggravate any internal injuries. And you need not continue to worry about his spine; that, at least, is repaired along its entire length."

"You--that's right, we--then, if Bobby...."

There was a pause, and Castiel said softly "Sam, do you believe that we could recreate the circumstances that allowed us to do what we did for Dean?"

"Um...we'll think about that one, I guess. I suppose its not really possible to...like surprising yourself in a mirror."

"...if you say so."

Dean was thinking, his *spine*? Jesus H. He was grateful he didn't feel any worse. Or, in the case of a damaged spine, feel nothing from whatever-point down. Somehow it scared him more than the idea that his brain might be...something...

"I'm gonna call Bobby--just about stuff in general, I mean," Sam said. "While the pills work on Dean." He vanished, likely in the direction of the room's desk. Cas stayed near Dean. 

Dean licked his lips and managed to croak "Food?"

"Certainly." Cas disappeared in a swish of trench, returning momentarily to sit on his heels by the bed and hold a glass of something up, steadying the straw for Dean.

Fucking *protein shake* was like ambrosia, even. Dean just sucked the stuff down for a while, until his stomach started making threats about nausea; then he let his head roll on the pillow, away from the straw, and Cas went to return the undrunk shake to the fridge. He came back and hovered a moment, and Dean managed "Go an' sit down. I s'ill know you're there." Dean could feel his eyes closing anyway. 

He heard the rustling of Castiel's coat and almost no noise of settling mattress. It made him realize how glad he was that Cas had arranged for them to stay in a decent place; Dean couldn't have taken a butt-bottom-out mattress right now.

"So...wha's mos'ly wrong still? Lotta bruising?"

"Primarily, but there is bruising and bruising, as you're aware. You can feel the condition of your face, I would say, though the pain is largely controlled. The bruising on the rest of your body is in proportion, and some of it penetrates even through muscle and into deeper organs."

"So my guts are bruised."

"In short. For a while, you'll be..."

"Worthless?"

"Not to Sam and me," Castiel said, and Dean thought he could actually hear amusement in Cas's gravelling voice; he tried to smile, but gave it up quickly as his whole face felt pulled wrong. Cas finished "But you mustn't aggravate anything. If you do, you could cause permanent...weaknesses."

"I was a leaky bag f'shit an' blood, Cas, you fix' that."

"Without the...specific circumstances pertaining, I'm not sure how well the methods I employed to compensate for the lack of enough Heavenly energy to nourish my own grace would work."

"Magic," Dean murmured, wondering where the word had floated into his head from.

"At this point, I can't say it wasn't...though it was a bit more...complex than that."

Sam was trying to keep his voice down, but it sounded like Bobby wasn't pleased about something. Everything Sam said cut off before it could make any sense, at least to Dean, who was not up for interpreting Flustered Sam right now. 

Sleeping sounded nice, but so did washing. Or...well, okay, being washed. Dean didn't even want to *look* at his body right now to know that he didn't want to *touch* it. The brief glimpse he'd had before the blanket had been pulled all the way up had left him with an impression of a wide assortment of nonstandard colors and shapes, accented here and there with thick scabbing that he could feel pulling and bandages he was glad he couldn't see through. 

"Scabs itch," he muttered, not really expecting anything to come of it, but then Cas was next to him again, sliding his hand beneath the blanket as smooth as milk, still almost making Dean shriek like a child--or at least croak like a frog--in fear for his injuries; but Cas's fingertip rubbing around the edges of the scabs was so light and careful that he only sighed. "Thangs."

"Sam brought some antibiotic cream which he says contains lidocaine, as well as a jar of...'Numz-It'?"

Dean managed to smile a little bit, this time, with one corner of his mouth. The second item was a topical anesthetic for the gums of teething babies; it also worked on mild burns and itching scabs. Plus, rubbing any kind of appropriate medicament into the scabs scratched them without damaging the area. With everything he and Sam had learned over the years, they wouldn't make bad emergency med techs. Post-apocalyptic ones, maybe.

Castiel was continuing "Shall I apply some to the unbandaged scabbing?"

"If, um, if y'don' mind..."

"Of course not." Cas's voice was expressionless. He got up and took his coat off--which was weird to look at, it was like he mutated into a real person or something--and laid it on the empty bed, following it with his suit coat and sloppy tie. Then he disappeared from Dean's sight. Listening to the noises of Sam's tightly hissed conversation with Bobby, and the rustling of paper bags as Castiel rooted in them, Dean closed his eyes.

A shadow blocked the light, rousing him a little. Castiel had set a tube on the huge bedside fixture, and was rolling up his shirtsleeves. "When we bathe you, the scabs will likely come loose, of course, and your dressings will have to be changed," he said, as though talking to himself, as elven-expressioned as ever. "But you should rest a while longer, allow more of the healing I was talking about to take place. In the meantime, this will help."

It was frankly odd, Castiel, poker-assed angel, with his hands all over Dean in tender care-taking. But Dean was too fried at the moment to really get into the weirdness of it, and besides, it felt too good to let his phobias mess it up. He understood Cas's change from ally-when-our-purposes-coincide to--when he rebelled--reliably intentioned co-conspirator. Lately, Cas had gone to obviously caring friend, and Dean was good with that. 

But he had a question that went something like this: Under the circumstances, why was Cas still here when he was also dodging the big guns from Heaven, and Dean's life was no longer in immediate danger? Cas had even set Dean and Sam up comfortably for as long as they could safely stay. Yeah, Cas had mentioned making sure what he'd done had taken completely, but Dean wouldn't have thought, after cost-benefit analysis, that Cas would have decided staying was the way to go. 

That would have been the nature of Dean's question, if he could have gotten enough of it out intelligibly. God, he was woozy. 

Suddenly Sam appeared behind Castiel, examining Dean with that intense look again; then he leaned past Cas and kissed Dean's forehead, near his right temple, pressing his mouth there firmly and making a soft sound in his throat, before quickly leaning up again and moving out of sight. 

Dean, as stunned as he could currently get (not very), lay quietly after that, and Castiel--who had the barest ghost of a smile on his face--was able to finish his ministrations without any interruptions, applying the cream with an inhumanly gentle touch. 

"That should help," he said finally. He rested two fingers lightly on Dean's forehead. "You need to sleep."

"Uh, I sleep withou' tha', thangs," Dean muttered, wondering where Sam had gone. He was probably just at the computer, but being unable to turn his head and see without inviting a lot of additional pain annoyed him more than he would have expected. He urgently needed to smack Sam. He urgently needed Sam to kiss him again. Or Cas, that'd be nice. 

His swollen eyes closed on a picture of Castiel in his shirtsleeves--rolled up, no less--studying him with quiet concentration, the aetheric million-light-year-stare in his blue eyes touched with unusual warmth.

***

"...don't think it's a good idea, Cas. Not yet." Sam's voice was quiet, but Dean, still almost asleep, could just make out words.

Castiel's monotone replied "He may ask. We can't lie to him."

"No, we won't lie to him. When he's--his brain's more--"

"Ngh," said Dean. He heard a scramble, and then a cool damp cloth was laving his cruddy, gummy eyes while another bendy straw was held to his lips; and he drank and drank the cool lime-redolent water; and now his lids moved more easily than they had before, still a bit swollen, but opening almost all the way. 

"Hey," Sam said, smiling. "You look better." He moved the cloth around, laying it carefully against other hot parts of Dean's face. "We--Cas...is speeding your healing up. How do you feel?"

"More pills." 

"Um, yeah, actually it's past time for them." He disappeared and returned quickly, and to Dean's surprise, he had little trouble getting his head up and swallowing the pills one at a time with a wash of water, though Sam slid his fingers around Dean's skull and cradled it in his massive ham anyway. Sam went on, after laying Dean's head back down, "You slept pretty well. The part of the healing that was only speed-started has had some time. We can probably move you to the tub now, get you clean."

"'Kay," Dean said, with a relieved sigh. Something he'd been going to ask--something about the healing, or Cas's healing abilities, something not right--wandered back out of his cerebral cortex again as pleasure at the thought of warm water on his itchy person flooded in. 

"Cas, can you help me...or, yeah, okay, that works," Sam was saying. Dean had been gently but unceremoniously lifted into the air by a pair of smoothly-muscled arms, and...something else. Sam finished "Let me get the water started, see that we've got towels and stuff ready..." Dean had the feeling of his brother leaving the room. He wondered if it was the drugs, or just the way he'd always been able to tell that; usually, at least. 

"You could put me down 'til he says..."

"Would you like me to?"

Castiel had managed to get Dean's person, even though slightly longer and somewhat heavier than his own, comfortably arranged. Dean's head was resting on something soft. 

"No. I...why is it so...easy?" Dean wondered blurrily.

"I'm using my wings. Ordinarily they're intangible when we're envesseled. Even though their presence in that form is a result of our taking a vessel--we have no physical, feathered appendages in our own forms--they're still quite large; and they'd be in the way. They're also sensitive, and would be an intolerable vulnerability when we're on earth. But we can adjust their tangibility to a small degree. If you're comfortable, we'll wait for Sam's signal."

"I'm comfort. Able. Can I see th'wings? Saw their shadows." 

"We'll talk about that later, Dean." Then Dean felt a ruffling, a waft of air and softness surrounding him. Peace rolled over him like nectar, making him sleepier, more comfortable, and even stupider than he already had been from the brain-slushee effect. He thought he could hear an onboard counter ticking IQ points off as his powers of mentation dropped.

"Does that feel better?" Cas murmured.

"Mmmmm." It was a softly moaned sigh. "Angel wings're better'n heroin." Probably. Dean had never shot up, but how could anything beat this?

"That's very true."

"Hey, Cas," Sam called from the bathroom, as shower noises hissed and gurgled softly in Dean's ears, "we're good to go in here."

***

The double sink counter had a French-door partition to close it off from the main room. The toilet and tub-shower were behind a lockable door just off the sink. The shower curtain had been shoved to the end of the tub and weighted with an empty ammo box; the whole room would have to be wiped up anyhow. Dean hadn't even noticed that he was naked until he didn't have to be undressed before Cas picked him up to carry him to the bathroom. He'd done it before, when Dean had to answer nature's call, but either Dean hadn't noticed or kept forgetting. 

Sam was naked--not much point in wearing anything for this, it'd only be sopping in about a minute and a half--but Cas was, too, which was freaky, because one, *Cas* was *naked*, and two, Dean was sure Cas hadn't been naked up until about a nanosecond before. Angel teleportation, or whatever it was exactly, he supposed.

Castiel started to settle them both in the tub, and--uh, oh.

"I got him," came Sam's voice, and Dean's eyes and nose ran as he felt his body tilted into a more functional puking position, and he managed to heave up a little greenish bile; the pressure this caused in his head made him black out briefly, which could have been bad if the heaving hadn't stopped at the same time. 

There was some foggy rinsing and spitting into the tub drain. Somewhere after that, he became aware that he was sitting propped up against Cas in the tub, with warm-to-hot water cascading over them, easing some of his discomfort, soothing outraged muscles and half-healed bruising and swelling. He didn't know how long they'd been like that, but his bandages were gone, so he didn't try to look at himself. The showerhead had a hose with a sprayer, and Sam had it now, for more concentrated spot-washing and rinsing. They both touched him with a gentleness he would probably not have expressed his deep gratitude for even if he had been capable of it. 

Cas supported him with easy angel strength. He also helped adjust Dean's person when necessary, so that Sam--and it was lucky Sam was such a long mofo, or leaning over the edge of the tub for this with everything so slick would have gotten impossible fast--could soap-sponge Dean's harder-to-clean injuries. Dean reveled silently in getting his itching scalp clean; why it had itched that much became evident when he saw all the red-brown water, and occasional gooey reddish-black chunk, meandering their way to the drain. 

Castiel and Sam talked softly all through the procedure, coordinating what they were doing; Dean was tuned out in order to avoid dealing with everything he didn't want to know about yet, and to enjoy the warmth on his aches. He tuned in briefly when he realized that what was going on now was mostly rinsing, Cas carefully lifting and moving him as they got all the soap off. Sam was saying "I don't think there's enough hot water even in this place to let him soak in a hot bath right now, but he's gotta feel better just from..." and there was a fadeout and a time hiccup--Dean realized Sam was drying him now, the water shut off already. In a moment, Sam was getting a pair of clean shorts onto Dean while Cas held Dean steady for it; then Cas lifted Dean again, as easily as before--wings engaged, apparently--and, carefully maneuvering sideways at the doorway, carried him out. 

Sam, with a towel around his waist, had gone ahead, and now threw the covers back on the bed Dean had been in--or on, rather--and, as Cas was getting Dean settled, Sam said "I'll get the antibiotic and the bandages and stuff. When we're done with that, we can let him sleep some more."

"If he can drink it, we should give him more liquid food."

"I'd like to be giving him some kind of soft food, he'd like that better, but his...he...uh, anyway, you're right, we should." Dean wondered what Sam didn't want to say, but it didn't seem like that big a deal at the moment.

"If you want to give him something he likes, what about a...trash food item? A milkshake? I've heard him order those any number of times."

"Yeah, man, Cas, you're a genius. Let me get some pants on."

"Sam, if anything should happen while you're out, don't take matters into your own hands. Call me."

"I don't want you leaving Dean."

"I'll make sure Dean is safe. We've done a dangerous thing, no matter the necessity of it, and we are not out of danger yet. You should take no chances."

"Would any kind of extra warding help?"

"We've done all we can in that regard, as far as the heavenly side goes. I trust you, but you have to admit I have reason to worry. Do you still...feel the effects? From last time?"

"Yes. I will for a few days, I think. And I should be the one worrying about you. I'm the invisible man, next to you." His voice grew soft, almost caressing. "I won't be long. Okay?" 

There was a pause, and then a growly murmur from Cas: "Okay."

There was cloth rustling in the background of the conversation. Dean sort of wondered, about the rustling, the conversation, and about how bad off he apparently was, because he didn't actually feel as bad as he knew he should--in fact, he'd experienced only a few episodes of feeling truly shitty since he woke up in the hotel...and then he realized that Cas was lying on the bed next to him, and he wasn't sure exactly how long Cas had been there, because for some reason, his weight wasn't distorting the mattress like Sam's had. Dean still felt the liquid-honey warmth washing over him in gentle waves. Cas still had his wings around Dean. Even brain-dead as he seemed to be with or without the wings, that explained a lot.

"Choc. Olate. Malt."

"Uh, did you catch that?" Sam's voice wondered.

"He said 'Chocolate malt.'"

Dean could hear Sam smiling when he spoke. "Then he'll get chocolate malt. If the staff comes by while I'm gone, grab some sweats out of Dean's duffel--I left some on top--and let them in to restock things. Hotel employees are notorious for not asking questions and ignoring even deeply weird shit, though they do gossip. I assume you can just do the mind-reading thing and make them forget what they were wondering about, if they get too interested?"

"I can, if it seems prudent."

"I won't take any longer than I have to, but I'm going to pick up a few more things we might need."

"Are you running low on funds yet?"

"No; Dean and I scored some serious cash recently. The unremitting effort of keeping Dean from spending it on frivolous bullshit has been keeping me in training all by itself. I'll let you know if there are any problems." 

"I'll be listening for you." Cas's voice was, for him, expressive--somewhere between a promise and an entreaty.

There was a pause, and Sam said softly "Likewise." Dean heard the door open, close, and lock. 

"Would you like more water, or one of the nutritional drinks Sam brought earlier?" Castiel turned his attention to Dean.

"Ngh. Gloppy."

A bendy straw came out of the darkness brought about by Dean's closed eyes, and cold, thick, chocolatish-flavored fluid was filling his mouth; he found himself swallowing thirstily, despite his bitching. Finally he made a petulant sound and spat the straw and turned his face, and the drink was withdrawn. He swallowed carefully and graveled "Guess...dehydrated..."

"Yes, you are," Cas said, with an almost human inflection of disapproval; Dean didn't know if it was directed at him or at the dehydration. "Keeping up with the rate at which your body will be using water and nutrients while you heal is going to be difficult, but if you're willing to drink small amounts at frequent intervals during the time that you're awake--"

"Okay. Beer?"

"I wasn't referring to that," Cas said, his dry tone discernibly dryer. "Though if you agree to wait for it until you're in better health, I'll get you that variety of...hefeweizen? From the microbrewery in the Seattle region, which I heard you say at the time was the best beer you'd ever tasted. Sam did bring some of your usual choices already--his opinion was that middle America is a very poor place to procure good beer, but that you usually don't let that stand in the way of drinking it. In any case, by the time it's safe for you to drink beer, it'll be safe for me to get you something of higher quality."

"Know wh'n I said I love you?"

Castiel's head bowed, touching his forehead to Dean's. "Yes. It was unforgettable."

"Friends help you hide th' body an' get you beer when y're sick."

"You should rest until Sam returns," Castiel murmured, shifting his head a little, so the near-inaudible words were whispered directly into the purpled, distended shell of Dean's ear. His voice sounded a little off. But then, Dean figured, that could be his own current state of beat-to-shit.

"Yeah, maybe, good...thing--can you..." he cut himself off with a yawn; it hurt, for damn sure, but it felt good, too--normal, like a hard soreness, a pain that felt like healing instead of utter destruction. Not that there was any actual bullshit thing such as a 'good hurt' no matter what any idiot spaghetti western writer might assert. "Um, wings? Keep 'em here, 'til he gets back?"

"Of course," Castiel whispered again, and although Dean couldn't feel the wings directly, he could feel Cas's skin and heat and otherworldly energy as the angel adjusted and resettled, probably to encompass Dean more thoroughly with the invisible, largely intangible wings. Cas reached down, without jostling Dean, and arranged the covers over them both. 

"You keep...saving us." Dean wasn't sure where that had come from. "An' trying to, even if..."

"A few times. Sometimes under orders--"

"An' mos'ly not. False mod'sy unbecoming in angels."

"Perhaps," Castiel said, very quietly. "Sleep now, Dean."

Dean faded out again. 

***

His dreams were predominantly of Sam and Castiel. Some were memories, but most of it was the two of them getting in his face and not leaving. He supposed, in episodes of lucidity, it was because they were both up his ass at the moment. But the lucidity of the dreams signaled that he was close to waking, and he wasn't looking forward to that very much; he controlled his breathing--he was getting a fair amount of practice at this lately--to keep his metabolism quiet, his body and mind still and calm.

He didn't hurt much. Either the healing was proceeding apace, Sam had managed to get some pills down him while he was unconscious, or Castiel was still...no, Dean was comfortable enough, but that sweet sense of distance from the universe and all its attendant crap--the mindless comfort that suffused him when Cas was doing his magic--was absent. He seemed to recall Cas saying something about sweetness and light not being what angels were about anyway, but maybe Cas had been exaggerating a bit, being joyless-bastard Cas.

Castiel's voice came from somewhere, barely loud enough for Dean to hear it through his haze. "...know you've had the help of...what you've received from me, but you've barely slept or eaten since we arrived here. And you were wounded fighting the poltergeists, too; you need rest."

"*You* haven't slept or--"

"I don't need--"

"Okay, I knew that one, never mind." Sam paused and added "You just...seem so human, sometimes. Uh, in some ways, I guess. Every now and then."

"Thank you, I think," murmured Castiel. "Come and lie down. We're as safe as we can be for the moment, and we should take advantage of that." 

A pause, and then Sam saying "All right," along with a rustle of material and soft flump sounds of it hitting the thick carpet. "You'll tell me if he wakes up?"

"He's awake now, just barely. But he's comfortable, and resting, like you should--"

"He's awake--?" There were whispering sounds of skin on skin, and bodies thumping gently, and then Cas's voice again. "I told you, he's fine. You need to rest, or you'll be of no use to us in the event of emergency."

"I will rest, but I need to check on him."

"Obviously you won't be able to relax until you touch him, so go ahead, but touch him only lightly; he won't feel much in the way of pain, and if you're careful, you won't do further damage by this point. But try not to rouse him much. Let him stay near-sleeping; his energy is going into healing at the moment."

Dean felt a light brush on his cheek. "Dean? You there?" 

"Mm." Dean didn't bother opening his eyes.

"Okay? Much pain?"

"Nn-much. Ogay. Jus'..."

"Flat out of it, yeah. Cas said that it's not just regular exhaustion, it's also the accelerated--uh, all your energy is being diverted into faster healing. That's why we need you to, um, eat, and drink, supplements and..." There was a pause, and a choked sound in Sam's voice, but he could only feel Sam's warm breath on his cheek and throat, which was soothing as hell and probably indicated further healing. It had taken fat drops of cold water to get a soothing sensation on that part of his injured face before. He turned his face just a little toward the moist warmth, exhaling a small sigh of his own to blend with it. 

Then he felt Sam's slightly-chapped mouth caressing his cheek, and stroking Dean's half-open lips, very lightly, barely enough to feel. He liked that; however, he realized that Sam's distraught behavior probably meant Dean looked like the result of a faceoff with a bullet train. That was bad. Sam was now giving him a soft, more focused kiss; Dean kept doing his best, which wasn't much at the moment, to kiss Sam back. He remembered their kissing when they were much younger, when their father couldn't see, and how that had been nice, too. He wondered if Sam would consider doing it now, as grown-ups, without Dean having to get pounded into a sack of bloody mush first. That was really sort of not worth it just for some pleasant kissing, at least not as a regular thing. 

Leaning away, Sam said "Uh, do you...need anything right now?"

"More k'ssing?"

"Um," and Dean felt warmth on his face, as though Sam were blushing right out into the atmosphere. Hey, it'd been Sam's idea; what did he have to blush about? Sam cleared his throat and said "I don't want to hurt you; later?"

"Ogay. S'eep."

"Yeah, that's..." Sam swallowed loudly, and Dean could picture exactly the way that long throat moved. "...that's a good idea for both of us. Cas is gonna watch for awhile. He'll help if you need...um, I'm going to try to--oh, fuck, Dean--" Sam's voice choked off, and he whispered "I love you," and then he was gone again.

Then there was more settling noise from the other bed than seemed called for; there was always a lot of it when Sam got into a bed, but this went on for a while. 

"Sam," came Castiel's voice, the deep, airy aridity of Cas's whisper. "Tell me."

"I...it's Dean, he...when I freaked out and you felt it, how bad he...I can't close my eyes without--I mean, I'd...rather stay awake, but maybe I could sleep, if you...only if it's okay, if it won't make us too vulnerable, if you could do that thing you do for him? You can always wake me, if--"

"Relax, Sam. I already said we were as safe as we can expect to be at the moment, and we need you at strength, not exhausted." There was more rustling and adjusting, and then Sam whispering, barely audibly to Dean, "Ohmygod."

"Just me, actually."

"I feel so much better I'm gonna let that slide."

"Go to sleep, Sam."

Cool, Sam was getting an angel-fix. He'd been stretched to the rims. Cas was going to have to watch it, or Sam and Dean might stop seeing him as the deeply weird, out-of-it angel dude.

***

Sam was out picking up more bandages and liniment, since Dean was stubbornly pushing the increasing activity. They *had* forced him to quit attempting (and miserably failing at) the bodyweight resistance exercises that both brothers used to keep in shape. But he did insist on accomplishing his own thing in the can, brushing his teeth--carefully--no matter how much it hurt, shaving with an electric razor Sam produced, and sitting up in bed or in one of the padded leather-and-wood chairs at the octagonal, heavy-wood dining table, for a while every day, usually for meals (such as they were in Dean's case). Sam had the decency not to eat burgers and fries, pizza, or anything else that might make Dean miserable and surly, in the room with him. 

Right now, Dean was content to take a break in Castiel's wings. He was tired. And that huge, brightly lit mirror over the double-sink counter was impossible not to keep catching sight of his face in. He kept shutting the French doors, but they kept getting opened when Sam went through to use the can. Shit, he'd scare kids if he went out like this. He'd scare grownups. He'd scare demons, for fuck's sake. He could only have faith in Cas's reassurances, and faith was not his best thing, but if he had to have it, he could swing it for Cas, he thought. 

Speaking of which. "You ha' feelings, not angel ones, you said. Or...not just that," Dean mused. He was on pain meds and very gentle healing angel-grace, and feeling deep again, subject-wise. Cas found these moods no odder than anything else he ever saw or heard out of humans, though Dean was collecting a lot of big-eyed looks from Sam when he voiced such thoughts. Sam looked cute with his eyes like that. It looked like his eyebrows were going to fly off his forehead like a little pair of wings. 

"Yes, I do," Castiel answered him.

"Nod jus' angel ones."

"No, not just angel ones. Angels...do feel. Not like humans do, usually. To us, the human emotions are...much as you view the emotions of other earthly animals, at least the ones who don't have sufficient cortex relative to other brain components to compete with humans on that level. Such emotions are not sufficiently controlled by intellect, by the higher self, and are generally good only for losing one's perspective. Though it's not a fair comparison. Angels aren't any sort of evolved animal, human or otherwise."

"I geddit. I thing'. 'Cept bein' vessel? Zat matter?"

"Not...not usually, but yes, it can make a difference. Sometimes a serious difference. It's...an involved subject." Cas seemed uncomfortable, and moved a bit, bringing a bottle of water into their circle of soothing. He let Dean drink until Dean made an mmph sound and nodded, and Cas put the bottle back and slid his bare arm back under Dean's neck, moving down into the bedclothes again. 

"So, Jimmy made a dif'ence?"

"Yes, he did. It's...a difficult thing for me to talk about..."

"S'okay, f'gettit--"

"It's all right. I should tell you, in any case, that Jimmy is in Paradise; he was saved from obliteration by what or whoever saved me from it. I've spoken with him, where he is now; and he's well, and seems to me to be happy. It's a complicated business to communicate over the wall, though. When I lost direct power from Heaven, it would have been even harder for me to prevent Jimmy from suffering as I went about my tasks with only the abilities inherent in me as an angel."

Hm. It sounded like Cas *had* his grace. The problem was that his current service contract didn't cover a few crucial, and apparently optional, functions. "D'you miss him?"

"He isn't unhappy now, but I do miss him. He was...a warmth, a presence that belonged here, and made being envesseled a comfortable--even pleasant--experience, until I was used to it. It's why I took the best care of him that I could; he had given everything for me, and continued to, as long as he was here. I should be happy for him, considering he couldn't have gone back to his family, and now he has no unpleasantness to deal with at all, but...he was perhaps the first thing I loved as only myself, Castiel...an individual. I had the potential, unlike most angels. It could have been he who...engaged it."

"Glad he did. Or I be dead." Dean turned his head a little--much more and he'd be pressing on a nasty sore spot where he suspected his jaw had been broken right through--moving his face closer to Cas's. He thought he could feel feathers, smooth and broad and strong--could hear them, rustling near-silently around him. It was probably due to his condition of the moment, but he it was still pleasant, as minor hallucinations went. 

Castiel kissed him, very gently. Dean closed his eyes at the increase in the soothing-nectar-floaty feeling. That probably always happened if Cas kissed a human. Come to think of it, something different, but really just as nice, happened when Sam kissed him, too. He bet if Sam and Cas kissed each other, they'd come, or pass out, or float away, or blow up. 

"Mm. 'As nice. Ever kiss Sammy? Givin' him a little wing or whatever?"

Cas stroked Dean's hair. "Yes, we've kissed a number of times."

"Bet it's great."

Cas smiled a very little, and nodded. "Mm-hm."

They were quiet a moment, and then Dean asked, feeling very hazy, "D'you ever...get that lost thing? Like now? Ev'thin'...nothin' the same for you. Even Jimmy..." He didn't know whether to feel sorry for Jimmy or not. Paradise wasn't the worst place to wait and see how this all turned out. Weirdly, he kind of missed Jimmy too, even though he'd only ever met him--well, gotten stuck with him--that one time; but Jimmy'd just been a really decent guy trying to do the right thing, getting in over his head, and ending up with the booby prize for his trouble. Dean could identify with all of that, except for the "really decent guy" part, some days. "Whyn't stay with us? When y'arent looking, um, for God an' stuff."

There was a pause, and then Castiel whispered "I feel...less lost, with the two of you; I can say that with great certainty. But in remaining with you for long periods, I also endanger you. This is an exceptional time. I'll come when you need me, if I am capable. But if I stay with you, even the sigils on your ribs won't protect you from my kin--they'll know to look for you where they find me, and so they'll bring all their focus to bear on doing that."

"Then why now? Here now?"

"Now, your brother and I have...created a combination of protective forces that hide all three of us, considering all our respective species-related situations, from both sides of this war--though Sam still takes your usual precautions against more common haunts and other such threats. But we can't keep it up for too long; no longer than we need to, to be sure you're well enough for me to go."

"Ah, c'mon. I know, them finding us, but you an' Sam stopping that now and y'know Sammy'd have tripped you already 'cept even he can't budge an angel. I seen 'im hangin' on you." He tried to nudge Castiel with his elbow suggestively, but hurt himself instead. "Ow." 

"Oh, Dean." Castiel had the most amazing look on his face--like he was going to laugh or cry or possibly blow up, like Dean had thought earlier. The look was coming mostly through his eyes, like always. But it was still Cas. Even naked and holding Dean and stroking his hair, that invisible not-light that surrounded him was still Cas, the mystical far-away thing in his eyes, everything. Then his forehead touched Dean's, in a gesture Dean was coming to recognize as being very intimate to an angel, or at least to this one. Castiel said "Your head will be clearer soon. And then, you'll see why this can't be kept up for too long at a time. Emergencies, serious undertakings--don't ask right now. I'm not leaving yet. You'll know everything before I go, I promise."

Dean liked the forehead touch, but was annoyed at the lack of information. He sighed. "I'm bored." TV should have been about right for his concentrational abilities of the moment, but he'd actually found he'd had trouble following even the lamer stuff, forget anything decent. Sometimes Sam turned on a nature show and he was able to watch animal/plant life interactions or interstellar CGI without needing to follow anything, but Sam was out right now. Cas liked TV, but he asked questions like a toddler while you were trying to watch. 

"Are you hungry?" Cas asked.

Dean would have made a face, considering what they'd been making him eat, but that would have hurt, so he just said "Nuh-uh."

"Comfortable otherwise?"

"Yeah. Kiss."

Castiel kissed him again. Dean knew what was coming, which was why he'd asked for the kiss; it was a great grace-rush to slide into sleep on, and he let his eyes slip closed contentedly as Castiel touched his forehead, still nuzzling his cheek.

***

Dean is having a dream. He's not especially worried--his dreams have been downright blah lately compared to the frickin' endurance events he and Sam are usually blessed with; and mostly these quiet ones are centered on getting loved up by Castiel and Sam. Since Dean's beat to hell and way blissed out, that's just fine. He'll worry later about whether they should be going on at all or that they're not going any farther. Besides, the only one who might or might not know the content of Dean's dreams is Cas, and even FYI commentator that he's been lately--compared to his usual taciturnity--he still isn't sharing anyone else's personal information around that Dean has heard. 

In this dream, though, Cas and Sam seem to be loving each other up instead of Dean. Dean hoped it didn't stop there this time; the best kind of porn involved people you already care about, in a hey-maybe-sex way. It's not very porny so far, but Dean feels comfortable, no pain that's penetrating into his sleep; he can wait. It's dim in the room; the white sheers are pulled over the windows, and it must be getting toward evening, because the light is coming in at a low sideways slant. He sees the other bed with the light coming from behind it, with the head end blocked by the bedtable fixture, but Cas and Sam are sort of sprawled across the bed sideways, like they'd started out sitting up, maybe doing a little casual making out, and suddenly had a mutual nap attack. Dean wouldn't have thought kissing would be so soporific between those two, as much as he'd been enjoying it with each of them. Maybe they're just really tired....

Except Cas doesn't get really tired unless something drastic is wrong, and even then, he gets beat up or blown away, not sleepy. Sam is lying on top of Cas, who is either naked or in shorts. Sam is shirtless, in jeans, and his hair looks damp again. Dean likes his hair like that, slicked back. Sam has beautiful bones, fascinating uptilting eyes, a long, straight column of throat...the sloppy-ass mop on his head doesn't do any of it justice. 

Hm, they aren't asleep, or at least Sam isn't. He's moving. He has Castiel's hand supported in his, both of them palm-up on the bed, and their fingers are curled together in an interlace; Dean sees that, in the faint light on the side of the bed away from the window, the side that faces him. He blinks, then blinks again. 

Okay, reboot. Dean wasn't asleep. 

Yeah, Sam was moving...he was kissing Castiel's arm, thoroughly. Hickey-thoroughly. Sam's fingers moved gently in Castiel's, and the caresses were returned, so Cas must not mind being lain on even though Sam weighed a ton next to him--oh, yeah, angel, could send Sam into low earth orbit with one slap and like that. Hard to remember sometimes--

Hold it, pay attention. That wasn't kissing. 

Sam's mouth was working too much for kissing, and if Cas had a thing for massive hickeys on the inside of his forearms--or anywhere else--Dean would have seen one someplace on Cas's body over the last few days, duhhed out or not. If you liked those sorts of suction bruises, you didn't just go healing them the second you got them. They could be reused. 

He realized something ought to be obvious here, but he wasn't getting it. He made a soft gurgly growl of annoyance low in his throat, but neither of the other two seemed to notice, which was weird in itself, since they'd been jumping like laser-activated motion detectors at Dean's slightest peep or shift ever since Dean woke up here. Now, they both seemed oblivious. Castiel's other arm was up around Sam's back, his hand flat against it and moving, stroking the smooth skin gently in slow, intimate, caressing circles; the planes of muscle he touched gleamed in the slanting light from the windows. 

Dean watched in confusion and growing alarm--about which he felt able to do squat except get bug-eyed (which hurt)--when he heard Castiel murmur something softly, and his fingers squeezed Sam's where they were interlaced. Sam made a soft, mouth-full sound like a kiss moan in return; he pulled back from Cas's arm a little, licking it once or twice, and sighed softly. He held the back of his hand to his lower face a moment, and something dark dripped once from his lower lip; he moved to press his face, then wipe his hand perfunctorily, in the towel Dean now noticed under Cas's arm. 

"All right, now," Cas said; it was an intimate whisper, and in Cas's bedrock voice, but Dean just barely caught it. "It's healed. How do you feel? A little too much?"

"Not really. Warm, and I feel...sensitized, it's um...a little more than usual, but I'm fine." Sam took the towel and lifted it to bury his lower face in it for a moment, eyes closed. He nodded in reaffirmation when Castiel placed a concerned hand on his thigh, and Sam let his head fall back, then slowly forward again, opening his eyes...

They were glowing. In the suffusing evening light, Sam's eyes were slit-pupilled, wide, huge, terrifying--and bright crystalline-azure blue, surrounded by perfect, unmarred white. 

Dean yelled, a garbled noise that was the loudest he could make, thrashed at the covers, and managed to fall out of the bed, which caused him to bang his head on the bedside thing, scream for real when he hit the floor, and black out. 

***

He woke up back in bed, his mind blank for a few moments. "What..."

"You saw me drinking blood from Cas's arm and freaked out. We're really sorry, Dean, we didn't intend for--"

Dean tried to struggle again, but Castiel was on top of him. Somehow, it didn't hurt, or even really feel confining--and he realized, as his heart rate slowed and he calmed--when he knew he shouldn't be calm--that Castiel's wings were draped around them. 

"Stop it. With the...wings, stop..." He panted. "Let me...go. Sam--" He realized how pointless it was, appealing to Sam--Sam had a new source; Dean had seen him--Sam had just admitted--shit, he couldn't do anything, he was pinned, he could hardly move even if he weren't, he--

Castiel said quickly "Dean, please relax. You're not capable of going anywhere, anyway; you and Sam are perfectly safe for the moment; and if I don't control your pain right now, it will hurt too much for you to listen. You know angels cannot be possessed by demons--"

"'uman bodies can--"

"This body is possessed by no one but me."

Sam was standing at the foot of the bed with his arms folded. He raised an eyebrow at Dean. "Angel blood isn't physically addictive, you know," he said. "Not that you bothered to ask. Dean, you just haven't been in shape for complicated explanations, especially..."

"Especially if they might upset you, at least initially," Castiel finished. His blue gaze lifted to Sam. "He has reasons to be afraid," Cas reminded him. "He had to listen to you detoxifying from demon blood, with no way to be sure your physiology hadn't been too changed to change back without a tapering process."

"I had to go *through* it. Dean, do you honestly think I'd put myself in that position again?" Sam's voice was entreating rather than angry. "After the way Ruby played me like a kazoo? Cas is an angel. He's our friend. He wouldn't hurt me, or you."

But Dean was busy having a huge realization. "You. Can't. Heal," he managed, a wheeze, a panting, gargled sound. "You *can't heal* any more. Why din't I remember, why--d'n I think? Why didn't--did you keep me from--remembering?" He panted a moment, and had to cough thick stuff and try to breathe.

"Is he okay?" Sam asked quickly.

"He will be. I'd give him water, but he'd likely spit it on me. And he's done himself no real damage," Cas said, "except that he has a new, if quite minor, bruise on his head. Would you like to heal it?"

Sam sighed. "You do it. Do you need me?"

"Not yet, for something so small." Cas started to reach for Dean's head. 

Dean turned it away sharply. "Sam, you're jitterin'...like y'r on crack. It's obvious--" he had to stop and breathe again. 

"Oh, his blood affects me, in a whole lot of ways. The one you're talking about, though, I can get the same effect from Red Bull and triple-shot lattes. Mostly I'm pissed that you'd accuse Castiel. I'm used to your lack of trust and accusations and general abuse, but you act like you have no idea what Cas did for you, right now with this poltergeist thing and then with everything, he gave up *everything* and you don't have any idea how it hurt him to lose--"

"Sam," Castiel interrupted softly. 

Dean felt tears leaking from his eyes, which wasn't an odd occurrence with the shape they were in, but he knew Castiel and Sam would both know the reason for these, the sons of bitches. "If that w're true, why didn't...didn'...tell me? Why lie?" He couldn't even cry properly. He would never have cried at all if he weren't so fucked up. Fuck this. Fuck being so weak.

Castiel tried, leaning over him and speaking earnestly, "It wasn't ever supposed to be a secret, Dean. We had every intention of telling you--it was imperative we tell you as soon as we could, in fact, for all our safety, and so that you wouldn't react like this. Sam insisted, and I agreed, that we couldn't afford to confuse or frighten you, considering the nature of the subject, with you still in such a vague place, mentally," Castiel finished, sounding maybe slightly ashamed, but it was hard to say with him. He might only have been uncertain how to phrase what he meant. 

Sam, standing at the foot of the bed, took a deep breath and said "Dean, that Cas can't heal anymore wasn't the only thing you were missing. We were just going to wait for it all--or at least most of it--to come back to you of its own accord so we'd know you had all the prelim facts you'd need to understand, and it would have been in only a few days--you're healing way more rapidly than normal. I honestly didn't want to mess you up--you're...whether you like hearing it or not, you're delicate, and your brain...I mean, before we healed you..." he paused, biting his lip. 

"Why did--you--how did you--healing me--"

Castiel started to speak, but Sam jumped back in with "Cas had to have something, from some source, to replace the energy of his direct line to Heaven, to save you...and I'd honestly have done anything--I didn't care what might happen to me, when he suggested it--he knows about the power I can channel, of course. For what Cas came up with, I needed a connection with him--a vibe, the simpatico. Just trying to give him my strength didn't work, plus as far as Hell's Host, these sigils on our bones only hide us from Lucifer himself, not lower-echelon demonic minions. 

"So Cas thought of it, a wild-hair idea, and we made the connection, and it turned out to be a lot more than just a connection. It amped me generally, as far as my tendency toward weird-shit abilities goes. And Cas's blood is...harmless. To me, I mean; I'm an archangel vessel, so maybe to your average person it'd be dangerous, I don't know. I didn't think about it until later; there wasn't time for any--*consideration* of any of it--it was move *now*, or you were dead, so I said okay. When I'm not using the Cas-connection it gives me, it doesn't feel like a rush so much as...the kind of gotta-be-doing-something jitters you get on four cups of diner mud. It can actually be a little annoying, in the same way. And then it just...goes away, gradually, after a while. Takes some time, a few days, maybe closer to a week. I only feel hopped up for about a day. You don't get a craving, I guess because there's no real high, and no withdrawal, not even a caffeine crash thing. Though I do get pretty hungry as its fading, 'cause it fucks with my appetite. Sort of like cold medicine." Sam paused, likely for breath; Dean had to admit that he sounded like Sam on a caffeine rush. Not that Dean had decided to buy this yet. 

"What...you do, what have you been...you can heal. Wha' else...have you done?" And what else might he do? And what might it do to Sam?

"The most useful thing we've found so far is that I can hide us from almost anyone," Sam said, as he was planting his feet farther apart, arms folded across his Montana-sky chest. He bounced on his toes a bit. "Cas can sense scanning passes. Demonic, angelic, whoever's looking for whichever of us. On Cas's blood, I don't come up anything anyone can read--demon to angels, angel to demons, human mixed into all of it--just a scramble, like static. And I can shield all of us with it."

"Who...who's trying..."

"Just at the moment, the angels who are looking for Cas." Sam glanced up at the ceiling, around the room, and his eyes glinted that bright blue for just a moment. "I'm hiding him from them right now. We've got wards up, but if we didn't, he'd still be invisible. It wasn't safe for Cas to stay so close to us any more, wards or not--eventually the same area of warding no-return is going to start standing out--until Cas thought of this. Then we started brainstorming and experimenting. Quietly, of course, don't panic."

"C'mon, wouldn't the angels maybe think of this?" Dean demanded in a growl, and then had to take a breath against pain. 

Castiel made a sound that suspiciously resembled a derisive snort. "Unlikely," he pronounced with finality. "The fact to which Sam made a glancing reference applies; the archangels aren't used to being without direction, as you'll recall Raphael complaining about when we had him trapped in holy fire. Also, they're used to being the winning team simply as part of the natural order. Zachariah is the cleverest of their general cadre of adherents, and--while obviously a different case--even he can be fooled fairly easily if one keeps his weaknesses in mind. And there's their prejudice against Sam, his being a literal abomination, a demon-human crossbreed--though I've been informed--" there was a note in his voice that indicated it had been Sam to do the explaining, "that the word is now used somewhat metaphorically, in common English parlance, to describe generally horrible things. Sam said he wasn't insulted..." 

"Well, not since it was you. I knew you meant literally," Sam shrugged. "That's just how you talk. Anyway, angels would knee-jerk so badly about the demon blood it's hard to imagine they'd see me even surviving angel blood."

Sam and Cas brainstorming. Dean couldn't decide if that would be a mass clusterfuck all by itself, or maybe the irresistible force, with Dean as the immovable object. "You sure? *You* thought'f it."

Cas's voice was heavy, but calm. "My blood will heal humans, if only a little is used. That's one permissible situation, if one that seldom comes up, given our usual healing powers. But as far as healthy humans, it would kill any who couldn't channel the power of angel's blood via a...sort of overload--grace beyond the power of a human body to contain. You and Sam are different, but with Sam--it would never occur to anyone that Sam, being who he is, would even live through a suffusion of my blood."

"Az'el was an angel?"

"Not as Lucifer still is, though, as I said, damned; he became one of the host of Hell. But Azazel is one of the denizens of hell who arrived there from Heaven, not earth. You might read the First Book of Enoch, if you haven't."

"So then whas th' diff'rence, regular demons, angel demons? Power? Command?"

"Some of both. Angel demons are degraded angels, much as many demons are degraded human souls. Still, even a degraded angel is far more powerful--they were not the same sorts of creatures at all to begin with, of course. That's why Azazel's blood, since he was originally not only an angel but a ranking angel within his subspecies, changed Sam permanently."

Sam cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable, but determined. "My marrow would have to be producing a certain amount of ex-angel demon blood, along with human, and that was still happening even after he was destroyed. It was always there to be used--if I'd known, and wasn't afraid of it, which you gotta admit I had reasons to be. It screwed with me bad enough, and everyone else sure hated it. Everyone but Ruby." He sighed.

Dean waited, but they seemed to have shot their mutual wad. He fought desperately to keep track of everything they'd said until now, and finally tried "So...the brainstorming...this's y're hypoth'sis."

Cas answered "Yes, since I have no way to test it, so I can't call it a theory." 

"Just...who he is? He just...channelling...grace?"

"I have an idea--perhaps some humans can support this sort of elevation of powers that already exist within them," Castiel added. "No matter the source, though there'd be signs that angels, in seeking vessels, would look for, and demons, in seeking...a number of different things, would look for. But those things may be less important than a basic ability that some humans have at a fundamental level to deal with either or both sorts of supernal energy--and, maybe, with sources of energy that are from outside that dichotomy. I admit, that's nothing anyone not in a...position of desperation--"

"*Us*, in that particular position of desperation," Sam added. "You'd have to be our particular freak pack."

"--would ever gamble on," Castiel finished. 

Dean licked his lips. "And...you arn'...worried, if...you fin' your Father, 'at he..."

"Whether I'm...castigated, or worse, for what I've done with your brother, is--in light of the reasons I do it--the least of my worries at this point. We are...flying blind, so to speak. No other set of circumstances would have brought such an idea to my mind; it seemed destined for bloody and spectacular failure on the face of it, that I was about to lose you and Sam both--" Cas paused. 

Sam stepped in gently. "That it could be used for other things--such as sheilding--besides what we did to save your life, only occurred to us later. And it worked." 

"So tha's how you heal' me..." Dean managed faintly. "Sam, you...drank 'is blood, zap up his batt'ries..."

Castiel answered "In the case of healing you, it was more a matter of forging a connection; he channeled a power to me that was both useable by my angelic nature, and that couldn't be traced either to or by any single non-earthly agency--also owing to the presence of my blood in him."

Sam jumped in again with "Also--before I do something that freaks you out, I should tell you the, uh, telekinetic thing just kind of...came back. Well, it was apparently never really gone, it just wasn't powered up. My laptop slides across the desk to me, whether I try to make it move or not. Once a cup of coffee slid toward me and hit a book binding and fell over, and now I keep lids on all my drinks. It needs work." Sam seemed embarrassed.

"Um..." "Congratulations" wasn't what Dean felt like saying. This wasn't just the demon thing, this was...angel-geared. Dean was too fucked up, and now shell-shocked, to be sure whether he should rant against this or roll with it, at least for now. "Izzit hard? T'do?"

"No, but moving something really heavy, or holding something heavy for a long time, gives me a little headache right here..." he rubbed his forehead between his eyebrows. 

Dean lay still, controlling his breathing, trying to absorb all this; he had asked for it, but he was having a hell of a time assimilating it even so. "Okay. 'Zackly how'd you...you both...fis' me up? Whadyou do?"

Sam rubbed his face with both hands. "I knew we'd get to this. Dean--you were oozing intracranial fluid out your ears. You don't really need the details, do you? Not yet, at least. Isn't knowing you'll be fine enough for now?"

"No."

"I had to ask." Sam went and flopped full length on the other bed, which was always an impressive thing to watch, then immediately got back up and started pacing, every now and then a blue flash visible from his eyes in the increasing dimness. Castiel leaned up over Dean and turned on the reading lamp that wasn't right over Dean's head. 

"Cas? W'you tell?"

Castiel settled next to Dean, and Dean felt himself get warm and comfortable again, that soft fluttering sensation all around him, while Castiel looked distant--more so than usual--for a moment. Then Cas said "You probably don't know this, since you sleep a great deal and irregularly, but we've been here for five days."

"I'da said s'ree or so..."

"You were unconscious for most of the first twenty-four hours--if you had begun to wake, I would have put you back into deep sleep. The finer points of my repairs needed time to establish themselves, and I was not certain that carrying you here had not undone some of our work, but we were all lucky. I brought us here by what Sam called 'angel express' and what you call 'zapping'; I know it's not your preferred mode of travel, but the possibility of constipation hardly seemed enough reason to risk further injury to your spine or internal organs; we'd healed your broken bones enough to stabilize them, but they're still fragile, as well."

"Cas was careful," Sam said, and it sounded like a surrender, and when Cas actually smiled a little in Sam's direction, Dean knew that Sam had probably been worse than hysterical in his insistence that Castiel *watch it* goddammit in his handling of Dean for the transport. "And he kind of, well, reserved the room, like we told you. It's such a nice place because for one thing, you needed it, and for another, we usually stay in cheap joints; we're less likely to be looked for here by earthly agencies of the assholes from either side that we're hiding from." 

Dean didn't move or speak. None of that had distracted him from his original question.

Cas touched his hair. "I know, Dean; you still want to know the full extent of your earlier injuries. I'm not sure I can explain them to you--you don't have the medical language, for one thing. And it won't make any difference. You will understand everything soon--before we leave here, I'm sure. Can you be content with the fact that you're alive, and will be entirely whole again?"

Dean sighed. Dammit. Let it go for now. "The tattoo?" 

"Sam checked it carefully; without the discoloration and swelling, it would be of the correct configurations."

"Wha' 'bout right now?"

"You have Sam and me. You're in no danger right now that the tattoo ordinarily protects you from."

Dean had a thought. "Hey. F'it in't gross...your blood..."

"It isn't gross," Sam said quietly, from somewhere out of Dean's sight.

"You can give blood...sick humans, they ge'better, why...me? *Nah* me? F'is harmless..."

Cas looked sympathetically at Dean--it was sort of his general I-feel-for-you expression, but with a brief headshake--and said "You've already drunk some of my blood, Dean; it was the first thing I tried. I had to have Sam's help to manipulate your peristaltic system to get you to swallow. That's how I know I dare give you no more."

Dean frowned, and it hurt, and he quit, and then asked "What hap'n?"

"I'm gonna take a look around the building," Sam said abruptly, and started to head for the door. Before Dean could open his mouth, Cas said "Put clothes on, Sam."

Sam stopped and sighed; rubbing his face with one hand. "Right. Clothes." He started rooting in a pile of cloth at the end of the other bed for a shirt and socks. "Like I said, for a few hours at least, it feels like a couple power bars and a six-pack of Mountain Dew." He finished pulling his boots on and headed for the door. "I'll be back in a few."

"Take no unnecessary risks, or I might have to find out whether I can still smite humans."

Sam gave Cas a smirk as he shut the door behind himself.

"D'Sam just bolt?"

"I think he needs to move around. As I was saying, the reason I can give you no more of my blood for healing is that you're not a typical injured human. Enough occurred with the amount I gave you that Sam and I were forced to contain the reaction. It did you no harm--helped a bit, in fact. The problem is in that you're an archangel's vessel--the vessel of the General of the Heavenly Forces. If I gave you any more blood, it could overwhelm--possibly even erase--the sigils on your ribs. You could become...a beacon, instead. That would happen with Sam, as well, as Lucifer's vessel--were he not...cursed, as you put it, or seeded, as we put it, by Azazel, who was no longer an angel, but a particularly powerful breed of demon."

"Sam channels grace like a yel'eyed bastard, so it don'...do the archangel vessel thing?"

"The change is rather a massive one, in regards to your potentials; your and Sam's potentials would have been very similar--almost identical--if not for that seeding. It changes...everything."

Dean was quiet a long time. "I'd be a beacon...to the archangels. Wha'bout Bobby? Give him blood?"

"My blood would be quiet salutary to his health, if there were any hope of getting him to agree to drink it. But it could not repair the damage done to neural tissue that was starved for oxygen too long and died. My blood can't raise the dead on its own; nor can I, now. Sam and I have discussed the possibility of healing him as we did you, but we're far from sure how we did it. We haven't settled anything."

Dean sighed. "S'a bitch."

"In short." He touched Dean's forehead. "Sleep, Dean."

"Wait, I..." he faded, annoyed, but oh-well enough about it to fall asleep peacefully, in the not-quite-there rustling of huge, smooth feathers. 

***

Dean only napped a bit; he was awake when the door banged open, creating a noticeable vibration and making Cas look up, finishing his current kiss with Dean with a soft push of lips. Dean rolled his eyes a little as Sam bounced in like a Yeti Tigger, still hyped. "I hope you guys are having fun over there while I do all the work?" He started shucking his coat, dropped it across a chair back, closed and bolted the door, checked the wards, and sat on another chair at the table--sort of perched on it, really, at the edge of it--and fired up his laptop. "I've been checking out the possibilities for restocking the medical kit, but it looks dismal for that right where we are, so--"

"Cas already said--he's gonna do that for us. We just have to tell him what we need," Dean interrupted. He flexed his jaw. He wasn't sure how long he and Cas had been kissing, but it was easier to talk; his mouth didn't feel swollen or abraded or tender in nearly so many places. 

"Cool," Sam said at once. "One problem solved." He frowned at the computer screen and then started typing at about ninety words a minute, his concentration clearly shifted to what he was doing.

Dean wondered quietly "Is he always like that? On, you know. Your blood."

"Not quite so much as this. I think I gave him a bit more this time. As he said, the experience...while it lacks the urgency of feeding an addiction, it's still...quite pleasurable."

"For you, too."

"Yes, for me too. He still relies on me to know when he's had the right amount; I admit, I lost myself in enjoyment of the intimacy."

Dean didn't have anything to say to that, really, but when Cas kissed him again, it was a clearer explanation than the words.

***

Sam actually calmed down a great deal only about six hours after drinking Cas's blood. It was apparently better for him than any amount of scary sprout-bearing health food; he glowed, in more ways then the occasional warm blue from his eyes. When he threw off most of his clothes because they were bugging him--he said he never got cold when he was on Cas's blood--and sat back down at the computer, Dean had a real stumper happening concerning whether to make out with Cas or stare at his brother. Maybe he could suggest Castiel and Sam make out, and stare at that. But then he wouldn't be getting the security blanket-painkilling benefit of Cas's wings, darn it...unless maybe they made out across him. Now there was a thought. 

He suspected Cas was reading his mind, or else Dean, in his semi-stoned state, was just being really obvious, because Castiel was forced to explain his inability to meet Dean's eyes without actually smiling--it was the result of the fact that he found Dean's perplexity at the situation both endearing and amusing (Dean suspected a better word than "amusing" would be "hilarious"), since it was a very stoned-Dean sort of quandary. Dean sulked a bit, but couldn't argue. He did wonder why he wasn't currently interested in doing anything but watching, or gentle making out, but he supposed it had to do with all his energy going into healing. Maybe that explained his unsexy dreams, too.

Sam didn't really notice. He was working, and on a constant mental monitor and cloak ever since Cas's warning signals had flashed; he was also occasionally taking a break from his web-research to explore his various abilities. He complained of having no demons on whom to practice, but he did go out and find some private darkness (dark to most humans; Sam could see in it) outside the floodlights that lit the entire Interstate stop, to work with the differences in those abilities. 

Dean eventually fell asleep like a log in Cas's arms, which was not the first time that had happened, but he was a little surprised to wake up with Sammy carefully holding him instead. He wasn't distorting the mattress because he was kneeling next to the bed.

"Uh, hi," Dean said groggily. "What...?"

"It's about one in the morning and I'm still cranking, so I thought I'd practice healing. Go back to sleep."

"Thought you couldn't..."

"I can't, not like Cas, but I can sort of boost your own healing processes. Don't need to know what I'm doing precisely, I just...sort of will you well. I read that humans heal most thoroughly, and in the most ways, in delta level sleep, the deepest level. So shut up and go back to sleep."

"Uh..." Dean was having a hard time understanding anything, and he heard Sam sigh and Cas, on Dean's other side--with his gift for not making the mattress sink uncomfortably--said "Let me help," and started to reach for Dean's forehead.

"Wait a second--I'm all for healing up, I jus' wondered--'zis somethin' you're gonna be able to do without the angel blood?"

"Maybe," Sam said, cocking his head in thought. "It's easier than I thought it would be. But I haven't tried it solo yet."

"So reason I'm stoned is 'cause Cas is here?"

"He's got us both in his wings," Sam admitted, smiled shyly over at Castiel, and finished "So yeah, partly."

"Oh. 'Kay. Cas?"

Sleep slid over him even more easily than it had earlier. His last thought was that he was going to miss all this pampering--which was the total opposite of how he ought to feel about it, but there it was--although it would sure as hell be good to stand up without suddenly getting an Olympic-class hangover. 

***

A couple of days later, he woke up with very early light slanting through the sheers, alone in the room. Okay, not alone; the shower was running, but there was nobody outside the bathroom but him. Castiel did not need to shower. Bodily bacteria evidently fled from angels. So that had to be Sam, and Cas was...someplace else? Cas could come and go in a heartbeat; his not being in the place right at the moment wasn't a big deal, he knew that. 

He was annoyed that the idea of Cas's absence was giving him a serious frisson anyway; it suddenly made him feel like an invalid, and it wasn't easy to make Dean feel like an invalid. It took something pretty much as serious as what the poltergeists had managed to do to him, before Sam got their remains merrily burning. But the words "intracranial fluid leaking out your ears" suddenly came back to him in surround-sound, and he actually sat up fast in alarm, got even more alarmed as the room swam, and held the bedside thing until his head began to settle down.

While this was going on, the bathroom door opened and Castiel emerged on a waft of herbal freshness. He had a towel around his slim waist and his evenly light-gold skin gleamed, dripping wet, the faint light accenting the planes and curves of his smoothly-muscled body and fine-boned face. His hair was also dripping, and what wasn't plastered to his skull was cowlicked over his forehead. His eyes were huge and deeply blue, thick lashes darkened and spiked by water. Dean wished like *hell* he were in shape to get turned on. Castiel said "Good morning, Dean. Relax; we're both here."

"Yeah, having shower sex without me. Assholes."

"You're not really in shape for it, Dean. The handicapped-user railings, while proving helpful to Sam and me, wouldn't be enough in your condition."

"Ah, jeez." Dean let his head thunk against his arm. "Don't say stuff like that, okay?"

"I'm sorry," Cas said, and it was no way anybody but Cas talking because he sounded sincere, not smug. Then he glanced back over a gleaming, rounded shoulder. "Sam is about to come out here and drag one of us back in with him; I don't think he cares which of us it turns out to be. Your alarmed awakening interrupted what I was doing."

"Then you better go," Dean sighed, "'cause you're right, I'm not up for that." God, would he ever say that again as long as he lived? He wasn't sure he ever had before. "Sam's really kind of, um. Big. Generally, I mean."

Castiel nodded. "Do you need any help?"

Yes, Dean wanted Castiel and his bright blue laser-gaze, with his beautiful drippy wing-bearing body, wrapped around him. Since Sam was hanging in the shower for the nonce and all. "No, I'm okay," Dean grumped, and managed to get back down onto the pillow on his own. 

"I doubt we'll be much longer." Cas went back into the bathroom and shut the door.

This was definitely, Dean thought, one of the signs of the final days. Then he began to giggle, in a masculine sort of way, of course. It hurt, so he quit, and sighed, thinking about all the things he'd have to wait what seemed like fucking forever to do without something hurting. He checked the time, then took a look at his med schedule, shuffled pill bottles and his bedside bottle of water until he'd gotten everything swallowed in the right amounts. In a half an hour, he'd likely feel well enough to sit up and eat, maybe some real food. A big room-service breakfast sure sounded good, if he could, well, eat any of it. But then, maybe he'd be well enough to go to the dining room...

He rubbed his forehead. The nagging headaches...he didn't want to whine, and he knew that even without the certain-death cocktail-shaker thing, his head had still taken it in the cubes; there'd been skull fractures of a caliber nobody would discuss with him, and there were many delicate layers between the skull and the surface of the brain that could cause trouble on their own if injured. Headaches like this couldn't be unusual, not for this. But, knowing what else he knew about the condition his brain had been in--very nearly *not* a brain anymore--they still made him nervous. 

Sam came stumbling out of the bathroom and turned on the lights around the big mirror that hung over the double-sink counter, making Dean wince. "Thanks, douchenozzle."

"Oh...uh...sorry?"

Sam's post-sex stupidity added insult to injury. "Shut the damn doors; my pills aren't working yet."

Castiel emerged from the bathroom--entirely dry, his thick hair all over the place, and in some of Dean's clothes, barefoot in jeans and a black T shirt; the clothes were just slightly big on him, but Jimmy's things, by this time, were starting to bag a little as well, despite automatic angelic repair. Cas paused on his way by to gently drop a kiss on Sam's big, droplet-glistening shoulder, getting a return one-armed squeeze and a kiss on his head. He went on out of the sink-vanity area and pulled the folding doors closed behind him, blocking the bright lights, and came around to rest on a knee by Dean's bed, his eyes wide and intense in examination as he reached up to touch Dean's hair, stroking it a little behind his ear. "How are you this morning?"

"Better. Not great, but--look, I ordinarily wouldn't--it's gotta be nothing--"

Castiel only made his calming gesture--and Dean actually found it calming; either it was Cas's mojo, or Dean must be worse off than he thought--and said softly "What is it, Dean?"

"My head. I know the pain's probably normal for what's healing on its own, but before that, some extremely shitty abnormal stuff happened to it. The rest of me is no big deal, I'm banged up bad, I've *been* banged up bad, I'll live--the ibuprofen and the muscle relaxants I'm on now help. I wanna go down and get breakfast today, by the way. But the brain thing...it's just...the headaches are making me a little nervous, man."

Castiel gently took Dean's head in his hands and gazed into his eyes, running his hands over Dean's hair, forehead, face, down the back of his neck, and leaning over to slide a hand farther down his spine. Dean managed to keep his eyes trained with that blue stare the whole time, knowing it had to be a major factor in the diagnosing.

"You'll be fine," Castiel said finally. "But you show unusual good sense in voicing your concern."

"That's right, attack the fucked-up drug-addled guy. So you think I can do breakfast?"

"I think you should do breakfast here. The dining room is overambitious--I know you'd be uncomfortable about it if you fainted in public. Even with Sam and I there to catch you. And it would attract attention."

He was right, which made Dean even grumpier. He wanted to, something, he didn't know, squeal? He needed air. "Okay, I'll eat here. But somebody get me out of here for a while, or--pricey room or not--I'm eventually going to kill one of you, and then we'd have to deal with the body and all that crap."

Castiel nodded, blank-faced. "Certainly, Sam and I can take you for a walk. Somewhere less crowded, so that if you faint--"

"Could you stop using the word 'faint'?" Dean sighed.

Castiel smiled a smile that existed, undeniably, in his eyes, though the rest of his face was typically relaxed. "If you should feel ill, then." He was still holding the back of Dean's head, and he leaned forward to kiss him softly. It went on for a few moments, and Dean was pleased to note that he was able to give back even more than he got without it hurting anything especially. Then he realized that was probably Cas. Maybe, anyway. He could check by kissing Sam. 

"You look good in jeans," he remarked.

"Then you don't mind that I borrowed them?" Fresh out of the dryer from Sam's industrious blood-induced flurry of making himself useful, the black jeans were nearly snug enough to fit Cas, though not quite. 

"Are you nuts? I'd a million times rather you stole my clothes than look at you in that nuclear-half-life suit and trench. I've been wondering if those would croak eventually, but it's not happening."

"No, that won't happen. But Sam suggested this. He thought it would make us less conspicuous than my wearing the same clothes all the time, since we've been here a while and it promises to be some while longer before we can leave. He also thought you might like it, and mentioned your boredom with my usual dress. Which, by the way, are perfectly goo--"

"Oh, bullshit, he just wanted to get the coat off you so he could scope your ass."

"He mentioned that point as well, though he complained that your clothes are too large on me for such 'scoping' to be optimally possible. He's also anxious to see *you* up, both because he's concerned for you and because...ahm, apparently the close proximity we've been living in is affecting his libido."

"Yeah, I bet your first clue was when he dragged you into the shower."

"He carried me bodily--with my cooperation, of course--and as I believe you must have realized, it wasn't my first clue. But he was quite patient with my inexperience, libidinous imperative or no."

"And you didn't once get that totally freaked-out look on your face like when *I* tried to get you laid?"

"Dean, I know Sam, deeply, and love him the same. There was nothing...degrading about it."

"There's nothing necessarily degrading about just having a good time, either."

Castiel blinked, puzzled. "We did have a good time."

Dean sighed. "It's still hard for me to buy Sammy macking on an angel. Me, sure, but I wouldn't've thought Sammy. Could it be the blood?"

Castiel shrugged. "It's a factor in his heightened interest in sex in general, I'm fairly sure. It obviously acts as a stimulant on him, if a short-acting one, and some stimulating substances have that effect on humans, especially young ones. He's equally interested in you, though. He has been for some time." Cas's gaze took on an odd intensity.

Dean just gazed back a moment, and answered "Yeah, I know. And with my dying so nasty right in front of him..." All this dabbling his feet in the wading pool of sex--and that being IT--was way past old by now. In fact, being half-dead in general was approaching putrefaction on its own. "If it weren't so goddamn creepy I'd wish I could have another drag off your arm, too. I'm sick of this shit. Which I know is totally ungrateful, I was *dead* for all purposes--"

"Dean, no being, especially not you, is good-tempered after being weak, in pain, and powerless for many days; nor is the prospect of yet longer convalescence comforting. You're allowed to be in a bad humour over what's happened to you. Sam and I aren't thrilled about it, either. Nor is Bobby."

"Oh, wow, Bobby. You didn't mention Sam and I...what we were just talking about, you know?"

"I haven't spoken with him. Sam talked to him."

"Well, Sam values his life--most of the time--so I guess we're okay there."

"Bobby was not pleased with the news of Sam's particular contribution toward saving your life, and safeguarding us, but when it became clear you life was perhaps still in the balance, and my presence with you for an extended time was necessary--and that Sam can hide us from even higher-ranking demons, and members of my extended family--he became calmer, though not what I think one would call calm."

"Oh, shit. I didn't think of...he had to listen to...you know, too. He was the one who thought...maybe what we were doing--cold-turkeying Sam--was too much. For a few different reasons."

"Don't worry about it, Dean. Your thoughtlessness doesn't bother you when you're in relatively good health; there's no reason it should trouble you now."

"You're all big angel heart, Cas."

"Angels have no hearts as such, unless we're envesseled." Cas the oblivious asshole, deliberate this time, his face in that not-quite-smile. Dean almost-smiled, too.

Sam, remembering to turn the bright mirror lights off first, opened the folding doors of the sink-vanity area, wearing a towel; he was shaved and his damp hair was combed back. Castiel surrendered his position rather than make Sam jostle Dean's bed with his weight, and Sam came around the bed and knelt, examining Dean with almost the same intensity Cas had. "Hi, how do you feel? Sorry about the lights."

"I feel better. Not good, but not shit."

Sam, still looking him over as though he could see through solid flesh to lurking nastiness, was carefully caressing Dean's hair and cheek. "Want some help in the shower before I get dressed?"

"Do you promise not to have your groin-groping way with me, too? I don't think I'm up for it yet."

Sam blushed. His skin was tanned, but it still showed the flush of darkness in his cheeks. "I'd keep it on a hygienic level. Promise." He stroked a thumb gently over Dean's lips, and it didn't hurt at all, thank whothefuckever. Though Dean's face was looking more normal to him in the mirror, there was still some pain; but Sam's touch only felt good, like his kisses--though still not particularly arousing. Dean sighed. He had farther to go than he was willing to admit, for the sake of his reputation. 

Okay, than he was willing to admit to Sam. He glanced up at the undoubtedly fully-cognizant Castiel, who was standing there with his head just slightly atilt, watching them, his face expressionlessly relaxed.

***

They had been walking around the prairie outside the perimeter of the hotel highway stop and its environs, talking of incidental matters; eventually Dean tried "So what else have you found out about this angel-demon crossbreed thing, Sammy?" He was walking between Sam and Castiel, a lot more slowly than he would have liked. He'd tried to make it look as though he was just taking it easy, taking the air, but since the light hurt his eyes, his glancing around at the wide open spaces was a squint-eyed, knurled-forehead exercise in crapola, so he'd given up on looking around and was watching his steps instead; and they needed watching a lot more than the fugly late-autumn-plains surroundings, anyway. 

"I thought you weren't into the mind powers," Sam said curiously, a little challengingly. "Like, heavily not into them."

"They hurt you like hell for a long time."

"And then came the blood, and you told me that if you didn't know me, you'd hunt me."

"Sam..." Dean sighed. He supposed he deserved this in a way, but really, Sam was going too far with it. "You know why this is different. You told *me* why this is different."

"Just making sure. I don't want any scenes blowing up out of nothing after I've unwisely assumed you're good with this."

"I don't know if good is the word, but I do know this isn't remotely the same as Ruby and the demon blood. It's...just not. If there are problems with it, there'll be problems with it, but what you're doing with Cas, right in front of my face, and what went on with a demon behind my back are not in the same category. They're not in the same solar system. Okay? You talk to me now?"

"Yes." But then Sam was quiet a bit, before saying "At least...I doubt you'll leave me over this."

That they'd sort of left each other, Dean didn't say; but Sam was scared, that much was clear. "No, I won't, Sam. Please?"

Sam was silent a moment, then sighed. "Yeah. Okay. I've been--"

But Dean stumbled, and Sam grabbed one arm and Cas the other. "Dean?"

"Yeah, fine, just--" he stumbled again and couldn't keep back a grunt of pain when Sam reached down to snatch him around the middle. 

"Cas?" Sam said quickly, before Dean could recover enough to speak--and then he and Cas were standing back in their room.

Dean sighed, sinking down onto one of the beds with the assistance of Cas's arm. "I hope you checked to make sure housekeeping wasn't in here."

"Of course." After easing Dean down onto what had become his bed, he began helping Dean get his outer clothes off, carefully. Dean wouldn't let Cas magic them off, much as he felt like letting him. 

Sam didn't return for a bit, but that was understandable; Cas had taken them out of easy eyeshot for their walk. When he did come in, he was carrying a white cardboard box. A delicious smell permeated the room as he closed the door behind him. 

Dean's head came up, eyes opening wide. He said, in a soft, awestruck voice, "Is that..."

"Chocolate cream pie, with real whipped cream," Sam said, opening the box with a flourish, and Dean tried to get up so fast he squalled in discomfort, and had to be rescued from his impending fall and returned to the bed by Castiel.

"Where'd you get that?" Dean's tone was nearly accusatory. 

"The restaurant, of course. We've been here long enough that the staff have seen Cas and me around enough; housekeeping's seen you, too, but usually asleep. I told the hostess it was for my laid-up brother. They think we were rock climbing at Vedauwoo, and you took a rolling fall. Hospital let you go after a few days, but with instructions to stay down for a couple of weeks, and since we'd come from back east, here we were until you were well enough to travel. They love Cas--" he grinned at the angel, who looked a little amused, "--and since he doesn't seem like the kind of dumbfuck who might do something like shinnying a stovepipe, I told them he was our cousin, who came along to camp. And maybe make sure we didn't kill ourselves."

"He lies by telling mostly truth," Dean said, wrapping one arm possessively around the box and accepting the plastic fork Sam handed him. "It's the most effective way. I taught him that."

"Dad taught us both that, and also to do it that way because it's less of a pain to remember details that way. Right, Dean?"

Dean didn't bother answering, shoveling pie into his mouth instead. Sam grinned, and went to fetch a quart carton of milk from the bar fridge. Dean gave him a look, but Sam gave him a glare, and Dean, chastened, took the milk, opened it and had a swallow, then settled back to his pie. 

As Sam was taking off his jacket and turning on the TV, flipping around to find something interesting but unobtrusive, Cas came close and put an arm around his waist, murmuring "Very kind of you," with his smile expression. 

"I was sort of an asshole," Sam muttered back. "I had to be sure, but still. Besides, he needs the calories."

***

Dean was lying on his back in a pair of shorts, a silent lump; his belly was visibly distended, and his eyes were closed. Sam and Castiel both knew he was awake, but in one of the deeply relaxed resting states he'd been prone to during his accelerated healing--which was now boosted by some actual nutrition in the form of the whole carton of milk, and the supplements they were making him take. 

"So do you think this turnaround is the real deal? I don't think he's lying, but he was dead set against my using my psychic abilities until now."

"I know. His objections have been that early on, they were out of your control, and caused you considerable pain; we all know his objections to your more recent, deliberate use of those abilities, and those don't apply now. Still, it's hard to say. He sees things very...firmly delineated in categories, and your abilities have always fallen into the 'undesirable' category for him. He doesn't change his views on such things easily."

"Yeah, and not only that--he's probably not thrilled that we have to take care of him right now. Dean hates being what he thinks of as weak. So he'll be upset--with us, or in general--no matter what, when he *is* all himself again."

"What're you, Kreskin?" Dean barely managed to mutter, and made as if to shift, but only stirred randomly a little and seemed to forget the project. 

"But at the least," Castiel mused, "his initial horrified reaction was damped by our explanations; he *was* willing to listen. For this time, at least; it obviously simply never occurred to him--as we are betting that it will not occur to anyone else--that your demonic power may be converted, in a sense, to the amplification of angelic power in you as well."

"I know; we'd both thrown the box away entirely. Still, he may be sincere right now--that he's cool with it--that he thinks it could be an advantage. I'm just worried that when he's macho-shithead *Dean* again, he's going to rethink."

Dean didn't even stir this time.

"He certainly will do that," Cas said. "The only question is where he will settle his opinions in the matter when he does so."

"M'right 'ere," Dean mumbled. He didn't sound annoyed, like he might have an opinion; only like he was establishing his existence in the room. Or maybe at all. 

"Rest, Dean," Castiel said, a bit more loudly. "We know you can hear us. We're aware this could be construed as unmannerly, but I'm sure you'd rather our conversations about these things took place in your presence, even if we have to talk over your head. Certain promises have been made about secrets, remember?"

"G'd point," Dean yawned.

"It's time for a couple of his meds, but I don't think there's much point in trying," Sam muttered, leaning over the scribbled schedule for the next three days, held down by pill bottles on the enormous double bedside thing. 

Castiel stood and began disrobing, as far as a T shirt and shorts, saying "I'll take care of him until there's any hope of getting him to swallow a pill." He climbed into bed with Dean; his wings must already have been in play, because Dean never flinched. Or opened his eyes, or snorted, or did anything else. 

"He's out," Sam whistled. "Since we're stuck here, I've been doing some correlating work for Bobby; I'll see if I can get it finished and emailed to him. If Dean stays out long enough, I might have a shot at it before Bobby calls me up about it."

"He'll be asleep a while, I believe," Castiel said, settling in.

Sam leaned over and kissed him gently--no serious face-sucking right over Dean's head; it might wake him, probably griping about not being included--then sat down on the other bed, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "So...while you're helping him, or occasionally me--what do you do? I know you don't sleep."

"I do any number of things it would be difficult to explain, but so you know, I'm capable of something you might call a light state of sleep. Perhaps a better way phrase it would be...a thought-quashing meditation, though I'm not unaware of my surroundings."

"Just devoid of thought about them. That sounds...boring."

"It's not; it's relaxing. You should try it. Both of you should, come to think of it; you can't actually do what I do, but there are human approximations."

"Yeah...I guess a being with perspective like yours would have to have some defense against boredom, stuck in a human brain."

"I'm not stuck in a human brain the way you're thinking of it; a human body inhabited by an angel is not human, and the brain becomes capable of far more than it was on its own. Sometimes we commune with the owner of our host body...something I won't be doing any more." At Sam's look of pained sympathy, Cas went on gently "Occasionally, I do communicate with Jimmy where he is now. It's not often. Time does not exist there in the same sense as it does in human consensual reality."

"Oh. Um, thanks for telling me--I *was* worried, about both of you--but I think this conversation is getting too deep for me to handle right now, with Dean, well, like he is. Let me have a few beers some evening when he's himself again, and I'll bring it up. Especially about Jimmy."

"I will remember."

"You know, instead of that work for Bobby...as long it won't wake Dean, maybe I should take stock of the equipment, see what we need, look everything over for cleaning and repairing--Dean usually does that while I do the other stuff--"

"I'll help you, when I'm sure Dean is settled."

"Uh, I guess...I could talk you through some of it--"

"If you let me read that information from your mind, you won't need to."

"Huh. No, I guess not." Sam smiled. "I'm really gonna start to wonder what the hell we'll do without you if you keep this up."

"You will adapt, as you always have."

"That...to be honest, it kind of sucks compared to having you with us."

"Interesting." Castiel cocked his head, gazing into the distance. "Your brother said something similar."

"I'm not surprised. He'd have divirginized you eighty times already if he could locate his dick or recognize it if he found it."

"Your brother also said something...similar to that, concerning your doing the same thing, though you've obviously accomplished that already. Incidentally, 'devirginizing' can be done, in terms of the cultural vernacular, only once."

Sam stared. "Cas?"

"Yes?"

Sam hemmed and half-started for a minute, then managed to say "I--you hadn't--I mean, I knew you probably didn't, like, get around or anything, but..."

"Your brother once attempted to make me have sex on what I had to assume could be my last night of existence. You know how that worked out."

"Dean still can't pass a post office without snickering. But you haven't tried...what am I talking about, why the hell would you? You've got more important things to worry about, and you're not Dean. Geez, you're not even me, which is a pretty big gap. I just...I was your first? Envesseled?"

"I've never bothered trying to explain the subtleties of angel interrelations of any sort to Dean, though I did tell him that I hadn't had what he would think of as sex as an angel, either. But that's limiting myself to what Dean might think of as sex, which is..."

"Limited."

"It would have taken an involved explanation he was clearly not interested in hearing at the time. I love Dean; but he has chosen certain ways of being, of functioning, to help him keep focused."

"Yeah, tell me about it." Sam said dourly, looking like he'd like to give a manufacturer's code to each of those ways. 

"It would really have been pointless to try. But I don't understand your concern about this, Sam. I enjoyed being with you very much. Is there some culturally-related ritual that we failed to perform because you didn't know I hadn't had the human concept of sex? With a human, that is, or an envesseled angel?"

"Then you have as an angel? Just an angel? I mean, in your own body?"

"Not as you mean it--we are not designed to reproduce, of course, so sex as you think of it is unnecessary. But we do commune on very deep levels, very...satisfying levels. There are similarities, I think, between that communion and the emotional and mental aspects of loving human sex. There are even physical analogies, though they'd be impossible to explain to you."

"Cas, my God. I just--I was only using the word 'virgin' because you're an angel and Dean is a slut. I didn't realize you *were* a virgin still as a--in human form; you...definitely seemed to know what you were doing, and...like you said, you also really seemed to like it. And unlike what most people--humans--think, sex--uh, with someone else--can be an acquired taste. You...it just seemed like you'd acquired it already."

"It was extremely easy to read your mind for the...things that might be useful--they were upppermost in your thoughts, I had no need to spend much effort looking--in terms of what you wanted and when you wanted it, and to find there how to show you what I wanted. Humans think very loudly, enough that my other methods of reading specific information aren't necessary when their endocrine systems are highly engaged. Sam..." Cas came as close as he ever did to smiling plainly. "You remember I'm not human in some areas, and consistently forget in others, much as Dean does; you just don't get frustrated about it. I'm aware it's partly that you don't know specifically what I can do that you can't, and what you can that I can't--you never were totally clear on it, and now it's changed, and I couldn't tell you precisely how; that's all right, I'm not blaming you. In this case, I simply...absorbed feeling and knowledge from you, for my use in our lovemaking. It was very pleasant. And Jimmy's body, which has been long without such stimulation to its various systems, benefited by it in terms of energy and chemical balances being--"

"Um--I'm glad about that, and no, I haven't forgotten you're an angel. The only customs, the only ways I know to show you...affection, respect--are human, my own culture's ideas. But even if candlelight and roses wouldn't have meant a damn thing to you, you would have known, from my at least making the effort, what you meant to *me*."

 

"Sam..." Castiel's puzzled face appeared. "You *were* both affectionate--loving--and respectful. I could sense it from you, as well as discern it through your actions. And remember, with you--I'm aware of you, every moment I'm near you. Your feelings...shine through you like...light through crystal. I know, all the time, what I mean to you. It gives me joy, and just now, that's hard to find, in this or any of my father's worlds."

Sam gulped, and looked away, but had to wipe at his eyes anyway. "That's probably the most amazing thing anyone's ever said to me, and I'm...I'm including some really, extremely important people in that."

"Those people knew how you felt, too. It's you we're discussing, Sam--they would have had to."

"Oh, Jesus." Sam took a shuddering breath. "I think...I think I'd be trying to initiate your second envesseled sexual experience right now, if you didn't have to take care of Dean."

"Patience." Cas gazed at Sam with bright blue eyes, his expression calm, but warm. "I want to touch you, too."

***

"How's he doing? Really. I know you pad things for us--well, oversimplify them for us--but you don't have to. I can handle a little complexity."

Cas shifted a little against him; Sam was holding him under the covers of Sam's bed. They hadn't gotten around to anything more, since Sam was still shell-shocked about having been Cas's first while all unknowing. "You can find that information yourself, if you want to."

"Yes, but you've had millenia longer to interpret it, and I'm not an angel; I'm only playing one on TV."

"He's just as we expected. He's healing a bit faster than I thought he would, but it's taking proportionally more out of him; the pure energy provided by the pie was an inspired thought. It was precisely what he needed right now. I think we should bring him a very large hamburger tomorrow--or several smaller ones-- though he won't be able to eat it all in one sitting."

Sam grinned. "He'll ask you to marry him. And I'd like to take credit for thinking of the pie in...a medicinal capacity, but the truth is I just wanted to make him feel better. No one likes being down with whatever kind of crud, but he's one of those people who'd honestly tune out reality so far as to fuck themselves over rather than get better before they try to go back to their routine."

"Which is the reason it's a good thing he has you. And don't underestimate your instincts, Sam. I'm sure you did want to cheer Dean; but the method you chose being so exactly what was required at the moment for his health is probably not a coincidence."

They were speaking in whispers--as close as they were, with Cas's head resting on Sam's shoulder as they lay in a tangle of affection, they didn't need to speak any louder--but Sam still asked "You're sure we won't wake him?"

"Sense him for yourself."

Sam did. Dean was no longer simply in a healing trance; he was in a deep sleep, engineered by Castiel. "I'll never be able to say thank you enough."

"I did it--rather, we did it, but we'll speak of my part for the moment--for him, and for myself, as well as for you. Perhaps primarily for myself. Yes, he is needed, just as you are; but that's not why that insane idea occurred to me, to obtain a pittance of the sort of healing power I once controlled, and attempt the impossible. That was...selfish need for him, on my part. Had that not been there, I couldn't possibly have conceived of what you and I did. I did put you at some risk, as well."

"I begged you to, and as far as the rest, I don't give a shit. You tried it because you love him, not because you were protecting the Michael vessel or the righteous man or any of that."

They were quiet a moment, and then Sam said "Do you know any more than I do about when we should tell him the rest of it?"

"My concerns are the same as yours. Too soon, and he'll react badly, not understanding, just as with the blood--only possibly worse. Too late...and he may react so badly we can't cope with it in any hope of a favorable outcome. And he has already remembered that I can't heal as I once did, though I thought that would be one of the first things he'd realize when we gave him that abbreviated explanation about how he ended up like this. He's still confused by the rerouting synapse pathways interfering with his cognitive abilities, or he would have realized more of the changes already."

"Which do you think he'll notice first?"

Cas sighed softly, thinking; it was a very human gesture, and Sam stroked his back with a small smile. The angel went on "Going by his behavior, and the ease with which the knowledge of your mutual attraction has been accepted by him so far, I'd say that will come first--for one thing, it was a lesser alteration. As I've said, Dean lives inside a fortress; it...has drawbridges. I didn't disturb any of his defenses, or his mental structure, at all--I merely lowered one drawbridge, with your consent, since I couldn't ask him. He can raise it again himself, if he chooses, when he realizes. But he didn't do so automatically--he might have done it at once, without thought, if his determination to keep that knowledge from his conscious mind had been strong enough. He doesn't even seem to realize its been lowered, despite an enormous number of memories that make casual assumption of a romantic attachment between the two of you inexplicable. As busy as he's been simply trying to get toothpaste on his toothbrush correctly, and considering it hasn't changed the way you interact beyond there being as much physical affection between the two of you as possible with Dean in that condition, I think he'll only be angry that I did it at all, and less at *what* I did. He's wanted you almost as long as you have him; he simply chose to sublimate it, for reasons which were probably good at the time. You were...what's the term...too young, according to your cultural norm?"

"Underage. We could have been taken from Dad and separated if we'd gotten together like that and been found out. But what we *have* done, it wasn't like that. We haven't kissed since we were...well, I was young. Nine, ten. We'd kiss when he held me in bed; sometimes I'd be all...messed up over one thing or another, and needed him. But this...he just seems to...accept it, though he's...I think a little confused by it, more than his current state of generally confused, I mean. He obviously likes it. I just hope he doesn't think you actually planted anything in his head."

"He knows even now that he has found you desirable for quite some time. I think that his amusement at your attraction to each other is just another facet of that--interesting to him, that it's coming up now. Also, I think he partly ascribes your showing your feelings about him more physically and obviously to relief at his being alive against every chance."

"It probably helps that you turned off his sex drive."

"I'm sure it does. Becoming used to the feeling of this level of intimacy with you, something beyond what he's ever allowed himself, without the sexual component, is doubtless one reason the transition is easier." Cas sighed. "But I'm trying to prepare myself for how he'll react when he finds out I did it."

"You did it to save his *life*. A ton of his energy goes into sex and the systems associated with it, whether he's actually having it or not. He can't afford that right now."

"That's true, but even though we can readjust him back to normal at any time, he will still, as he puts it, tear me a new one. He's very sensitive about anything concerning his...overweening sexual focus."

"No shit," Sam muttered. "What about the other one? The memories you removed?"

Cas thought a while, then said "He's probably running into some confusing absences, when he reacts to certain thoughts in ways he can't explain, but he doubtless ascribes that to his condition. I took nothing but the engrammatic memories themselves. He remembers that he went to Hell, and why; and that it was, from his point of view, for forty years. He still knows...how long he was a soul in torture, and how and why that changed for the last ten years. He knows who Alastair was. I removed the sense memories of the hellhound's work, but he knows they were how he got there. He knows everything he knew before--except the specific content of his torture, in either capacity."

"You didn't take anything else."

"I did not."

"I don't think you should be worried. You saw a chance to help without harming--you did ask me first, since I was the closest thing to asking him that was available--Cas...if you did that for me--I'd love you in every way possible for it. If I didn't already, that is." Sam's voice dropped to a whisper, tilting Cas's head up to look into his eyes.

Castiel gazed at him a moment, then pressed his face into Sam's neck, arms tightening around him. "That's one of the most amazing things anyone's ever said to me. And I'm including, in that, people of import whom you could not possibly imagine."

Sam smiled at having his words so sincerely quoted, and whispered back "I bet I couldn't." 

They were silent for a while, absorbed in each other in their human and angelic ways; finally though, Sam shifted a little, pulling back, knowing they hadn't finished with Dean yet. "We've got to tell him those changes were made before he realizes it on his own--or he may never trust either of us again."

"I know. But the trouble the walls between you was causing was dangerous for everyone. The two of you need each other in order to survive--and, incidentally, help the rest of us survive--too badly for it all to continue. One serious chasm between you--such as you've already been through, more than once--at just the wrong time..."

"And disaster; I get it. But if we lead with that, he'll assume you did it so that he and I can function as a team more easily, stop the apocalypse before the final battles and all that. That, to put it mildly, won't thrill him."

"I know. But my first reason...I was thinking primarily of your love for each other, its beauty, its need to take its natural course. It's a love that has inspired me tremendously--made me realize that such human love is as powerful, in its own way, as universal angelic love."

"Wow," Sam breathed. "Really?"

"Really, Sam."

Sam kissed him softly, and nuzzled his temple. "Do you think...there was any other way to do what you did? With Dean? That he might have a problem with, I mean."

Castiel thought, and said "Probably not. His fear had grown out of proportion to what he was afraid of, because he had no way to know that it was not something evil; only something he'd had to bury for a while, until it was safe to approach it. And only showing him that could have broken such a deadlock."

"Then...we didn't do wrong, even if it comes to nothing?"

"We did no wrong, Sam. But it won't be an easy change. Dean is--I'm sorry--an ass of the first magnitude, in a number of ways..."

Sam smirked. "Can I use that?"

"...but he is a conscientious person, as I realize I needn't tell you. He will doubtless be angry--mostly at me, somewhat at you; but--I speak beyond merely saving his life, and our method of doing so--I don't believe our actions in this case will come to nothing, despite Dean's likely initial reactions."

"His big problem will be that he'll see it as us doing it behind his back. He's had...kind of enough of that from me, with the demon blood thing. And he'll be right, in a way. How can I defend what I did if I believe he's right?"

"Don't defend what we did," Castiel said, and slid up over Sam, cradling his head in both hands. Cas kissed him and went on "We'll tell him the truth, and he will take whatever action he feels appropriate. There was never a question of our being able to convince him it was necessary; if he can't see that for himself, he never will. Just let him...do what he has to do. If he decides it was unforgiveable...there's very little we can do."

After a few minutes of kissing and nuzzling, Sam murmured "He's...bizarrely laid-back--for him, I mean--but definitely lucid when he hasn't been knocked out by anything, including general exhaustion. Maybe we should..." he bit his lip, then finished "...just go ahead and tell him."

"You are his brother. What do you say?"

"I say that 'coherent' but not yet with the needle lunging into the red of 'megadick' is probably the best time to approach it. That'd be right about now. Or in the morning, or whenever he's awake, and with it."

"I agree. He'll begin to question soon. If he feels victimized by the two of us--whom he currently *has* to trust--while he still feels weakened..."

"Like we said earlier. He may never entirely trust either of us again."

***

Dean sighed and threw his book to land in a flat spin on the soft good-hotel carpet, but without as much oomph as he wanted, because it had been a gift from Sam to help relieve the tedium when Sam didn't need Dean's help with anything. He'd tried watching porn, but felt weird about it with Castiel around (even if Dean hadn't hated the fact that he found it utterly boring, even if it was good). Dean had loudly reflected that it was odd Sam shouldn't be interested in it either, since he was *doing* Castiel, unlike some people who were confined to their beds without any good *reason* to be, since they weren't doing anybody at *all*--

"Dean," Cas said in his quiet, gruff monotone, coming to sit next to Dean--who was healed quite past people having to be careful not to jostle his mattress; but he was still weak as a kitten, compared to his usual level of vibrancy, and reclining against the headboard and some pillows. Cas went on "We need to talk."

Well, this was interesting, but Dean automatically went to yellow alert even as he blinked at Cas, reached up and ran a hand down the sleek muscle of Castiel's evenly gold-skinned arm. Cas was wearing one of Dean's undershirts over a pair of jeans that actually fit him; they'd been purchased by Sam, along with some other items, to help him remain innocuous when he left the room. Dean said "Whenever you say that, I get the willies."

There was a disturbance from the far end of the room; Sam was closing his laptop, and he came to toss himself crosswise over the other bed. He folded his arms and rested on his elbows, facing Dean and Castiel. "We all need to talk," he added.

"O-kay," Dean said, eyes big, looking from one to the other of them. 

"It's about when we healed you," Cas said.

"Oh, fucking Christ. Is this gonna be a bigger pants-crapper than the blood-drinking thing?"

Castiel seemed to be controlling a smile for a moment, while Sam rolled his eyes. Cas said "We hope not. We want you to know something--that love of you was our first consideration in trying the method we did to save you, and in doing the things that we're about to discuss. Do you believe me?"

Dean was quiet a moment, face impassive. Then he said "Provisionally. You've never really gotten the hang of lying, so, yeah, I guess. What's this about?"

Sam covered his face with one hand. 

Castiel went on calmly "For one thing, the reason you haven't had much sexual interest in anything lately is that I--as Sam put it--deactivated your sex drive while you were convalescing. It took too much of your energy. Most people don't realize--"

"You made me IM--" Dean's voice dropped to a furious whisper, his eyes huge. "You made me the I-word?"

"Not as you're thinking of it. And what I did is easily reversible."

"So reverse it!"

"Sam?"

Sam got up and stood next to Castiel; he lay one hand against Cas's bare shoulder, and closed his eyes; Castiel leaned forward and pressed his palm to Dean's forehead. "Oh, shit, the forehead thing," Dean muttered, but didn't move.

Castiel removed his hand in a few moments, and Sam exhaled slowly, moving to sit on the other bed. Castiel said "You'll notice the difference soon. For one thing, much of your general lassitude will seem to vanish at first, but it won't take long for you to exhaust yourself again if you're not careful."

"So be sure not to start anything you don't know yet if you can finish," Sam said dryly, raking his fingers back through his hair as he lifted his head to look at Dean. He smiled. "And I don't just mean sex, though I'm sure that's first on your list."

"Damn well believe it, watching you two hanging all over each other for I dunno how fucking long now--" He lunged up onto his knees and toppled himself and Castiel over toward the bed's foot, Dean on top.

"Dean, wait." Cas lay still, but his tone was a cautionary growl.

"You were just closer, Cas. Turn me down and I'll only make a run at Sammy. Which I have plans for no matter how this turns out."

"Dean," Sam tried, "listen. There's more. You need to hear it before you do anything you'd rather you hadn't. You'll be glad you waited, even if you still want to make up for lost time with Cas and me."

Dean froze, looked down at Castiel's twin cobalt lasers, looked back up at Sam's earnest-face and said "Okay, but you better be right about that."

***

If Dean was, or had been, weak as a kitten, then there were kittens in the world reducing their balls of yarn to their component elements, as Castiel and Sam tried to get a word in edgewise. 

The horrible thing, though, was when Dean stopped shouting obscenities, accusations, and general assholery, and collapsed again on his bed, with his forehead pressed down against his palms, weaving unsteadily. 

Sam moved to help pull the exhausted Dean up to lie on the bed, but Dean threw him off as though he were lava-hot. "Get the fuggoff!"

"Dean--"

"Don't fucking 'Dean' me! You messed with my *mind*! You were into my--with my--you--" he suddenly choked a sob that looked like it scared him a lot worse than it did Sam or Cas, and folded up, almost hanging his head between his knees, arms wrapped behind and over his head. He was silent, but Sam and Castiel knew he was either crying or, more likely, controlling it.

"Dean, no," Sam couldn't help whispering in the otherwise-still room. "No. Only what we told you. I wasn't in there with him, I didn't see anything, and if you can't trust Cas, then who? He only took those memories, specifically, only the...and about me, and...you, all Cas did was give us an opportunity. I'm here--really, I mean, I *want* to be--or you can close it off again. You won't even need Cas for that. And...Cas can even give you those particular memories of Hell back if you want him to." The last was said almost inaudibly. "Like we said. It's okay. It's only that."

Dean was still lost in a world of awful possibility. "How do I *know*? The things that have fucked with my head, given and taken and screwed around and--how can I--if you did that, what else did you do, for *my* *own* *good*, that you aren't telling me, that you'll never--" He buried his face again; he'd said all that already, and more. They were all repeating themselves by now.

"Don't," Castiel murmured to Sam. "He *is* weak, and his cognitive processes are reestablishing themselves. He still grows confused more easily than he's used to dealing with. He'll eventually realize that we have no reason at all to do the sorts of things he's afraid of--but he has reasons to be afraid, after everything he's been through."

"Yeah. I know," Sam whispered back.

"We must let him rest."

"We can't leave him." Sam seized Castiel's shoulder in alarm. 

"No. But we can let him alone."

***

At some point, Dean got to his feet and made his way to the bathroom, slamming the door and starting the water in the tub. Sam and Castiel both remained on alert, listening, feeling, but letting him keep to himself. Sam had cleared his bed of the paraphernalia he'd been working on maintaining with Dean's help, and he and Cas lolled loosely wrapped there, lost in their own thoughts, listening to Dean occasionally refresh the hot water in the tub.

After about forty-five minutes, they heard the thunk of the drain popping open, and no water streaming in for a refill; they tightened their hands on each other for a moment, and Castiel touched his forehead to Sam's, and maybe because of the blood bond they shared, the gesture felt more intimate than it ever had. Then they reluctantly separated themselves, dressed more fully, and went to the large wooden dining table to wait; Sam fiddled idly with the computer. 

Dean emerged from the bathroom, clad in a towel; he didn't look at either of them while he found clean underwear and pulled the jeans he'd been wearing back on. Then he came and sat on the side of Sam's bed that faced the dining table. 

"I think..." he cleared his throat, and swallowed, and waited a moment, and tried again. "I think I might...need to apologize." His eyes were fixed on the floor. 

Sam was too flabbergasted to speak. It was not unknown for Dean to admit to being on the wrong side of an argument, but flat-out apologies were rare. Castiel said, very simply, "No, you don't."

"Shut up, Cas. I mean...if I trust you...I *have* to trust you--" he choked to silence, and there was another pause; in a moment, Dean said quietly "Sam...already gave me a lecture about second-guessing and control-freaking. I think I just...did it again."

"No--Dean, you were scared, you had every right to--"

"Shut up, Sam. I was scared. Yeah, I still am. But...maybe I couldn't have helped it, but I'm still sorry, because you--I shouldn't have ripped into *you*. Not for being fucked with by everybody *but* you. Maybe that's what scared me so much, only you...were left, I dunno. Only you and a couple of other people, maybe, left to trust. I don't know if I...if it was...but whether it was or not, I'm sorry. I do trust you. I know you...only did what you said." His voice shuddered in a half-sob on the last syllable, and he was quiet again for a minute.

"Dean, if we can--"

"Shut *up*, Sam," Dean snapped, with a brief lift of his eyes to glare, this time. Sam shut up, after an additional blue stare from Castiel. 

"Cas...you gave up everything for us, you burned your only bridge, and now you're stuck. I know that's not only about us--you need to find your father, too. You're...not an angel of heaven, but you're still an angel of the Lord. One of the few, I guess." He smiled a very little, then went on haltingly, "You...you *died*, to give me a chance to stop Sam--and I blew it. He blew it, we blew it--but you're still with us anyway. You saved my life again, my brain, the rest of me that--I mean, all the things that are really crucial that a human being has, things that can't be fixed when you break them--I've broken all mine, and you've fixed them. Jesus, you did it when it killed you--or coulda killed you--even to try. How can I not trust you?"

Castiel didn't move or speak. Finally taking his cue, Sam didn't, either. 

Dean took a deep, damp breath, and went on, still staring at the floor past the tightly clenched hands that hung between his knees, "Sam...I don't know what to say. I told you it was...it was over, we were equals, it was in the past...and I knee-jerked. I went right back there, right back to when I couldn't trust you. You lied, you did, you hid major shit from me, but I told you, and I meant it--I thought--that it was *right* now, I said we made it right, that we needed each other, that...that I love you, but I turned around and--"

Sam couldn't stand it. He got up and took Dean's hands, rapidly loosening his fingers to grip them tight, and Dean pulled them away but only to lean forward, wrapping his arms around Sam's waist, hiding his face in muscle-padded ribs. He shook very lightly a moment, keeping control, while Sam held on to him. 

 

"It's okay," Sam whispered. "It was a shock. A reflex out of a shock. And you saw that only a little while after it happened. You didn't...you didn't really go back to that place. It's okay."

"If it's any comfort," Castiel said very quietly, "we expected that you'd be upset. You've been through too much for that sort of news not to seem to you, at first, to be simply tinkering with your mind, which is a horrifying thing. We were willing to accept whatever you felt you needed to do."

"Yeah," Dean mumbled into Sam's side. 

Sam took a deep breath, and managed "Dean, if you want--if you want to forget about me and you again--" he hardly needed to specify-- "you don't need Cas for that. He sort of arranged it so you could just...go back to the way you were, there."

Dean mumbled, still without moving his face. "I don't wanna talk about it now."

"Okay. Okay. Come on. You should rest. You're still weak." 

***

They hadn't been able to get Dean to let go of Sam entirely before he fell asleep, so Sam was lying in Dean's bed with him, one arm extended for Dean to use as a shoulder-pillow. Cas was in one of the dining chairs, having pulled it around close. Sam stared into space, and Cas let him think.

Finally he murmured "Are you all right?"

Sam's gaze flicked over, and he smiled a very little. "Me? I'm...I guess okay."

"If you'd rather sleep right now, I can help..."

"No. Dean's well enough...you'll be leaving soon, won't you? I'm going to miss you."

"I'll be a phone call away. I swear to you that I'll warn you of any incommunicado periods before they happen."

"I know, it's all right, I'm just...I'm still going to miss you."

"I suspect I'll feel the same," Cas said softly, without smiling. "It might also help you and Dean to readjust, though, not to have me in pocket for a while. Dean...would probably like things to be as uncomplicated as possible. You both have a lot to deal with now."

"He'll want to work. He always does, when things have gotten complicated for him."

"I'm sure. I'll stay until he wakes and we'll decide if we want to schedule our next meeting, or...wait and see."

"It'll be wait and see, for all of us. But I doubt Dean would mind if I wanted to see you alone."

"We'll ask. You're probably right."

Sam extended a hand, and Cas took it. Their gazes held, and Sam's began to grow slightly mistly, but he smiled again. "You are...really amazing."

"I'm just an angel."

"I don't mean that. I mean, for an angel, you're seriously exceptional."

"The same could be said for both of you, as humans."

"Dean and I have never had to do what you've had to do. And you're still...still functioning, still you, even with the...the realizations that you've been hit over the head with about everything you've always believed--everything that ever defined your existence. Everything."

"You and he have been a great deal of help with that." Cas sighed, his expression distant.

"I didn't mean to bring you down, sorry."

"Don't apologize. I'm fine. Dean will be. And you are, too." He squeezed Sam's hand.

Still a bit teary, Sam smiled again. "I hope you're right." 

 

 

.


End file.
